They had grown increasingly devout after losing land to Han Chinese in what they called an unfair business deal.<\/p>\n
2015-06-29<\/span><\/p>\n Ethnic Ugyhurs who attacked a police post in northwestern China\u2019s troubled Xinjiang region last week were members of a Muslim family who had become increasingly devout as they struggled for almost 10 years to make a living after losing land to Han Chinese in what they considered an unfair business deal, sources said.<\/p>\n The June 22 incident, in which police at a traffic checkpoint in the Tahtakoruk district of southwestern Xinjiang\u2019s Kashgar (in Chinese, Kashi) city in Kashgar prefecture were attacked with knives and bombs, left at least 19 dead, according to local sources.<\/p>\n Among those killed were three police officers and 16 Uyghurs designated by police as \u201cterrorists,\u201d in addition to an unknown number of bystanders, sources said.<\/p>\n Most of the attackers had come from one family based originally in Tazghun town in Kashgar prefecture\u2019s Yengisheher (Shule) county, but who had later moved, Memet Sawut, a police officer at Tazghun town\u2019s police station, told RFA\u2019s Uyghur service.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a really religious family,\u201d Sawut said. \u201cWe had been watching them closely, which is why they moved to Qoghan, outside Kashgar city, though some of them remained behind.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBecause they had left our town, we were not aware of their plans,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Though police had forcibly shaved the beards of male family members and had removed women\u2019s veils, \u201cno one in their family had been sentenced to death or to prison terms, so I don\u2019t think they carried out their attack out of frustration,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Attackers ‘all related’<\/b><\/p>\n Police determined that the perpetrators of the June 22 assault were all related \u201cwhen we checked the corpses\u201d after the attack, said Tazghun police officer Mey Jisheng.<\/p>\n The next day, police searched for senior family member Atawulla Dawut to question him on his possible role in directing the attack, and surrounded him outside a city hotel, Mey said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had planned to ask him to surrender, but he blew himself up with explosives as soon as he saw us,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cNo one was close to him at the time, so no one else got hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition to those killed in the attack, 60 people have been taken into custody by police for interrogation, Mey said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do not know yet how many will be linked to the attack,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Though Atawulla\u2019s family was not initially religious, \u201cafter their land was given to a Han Chinese businessman, they suffered financially,\u201d a resident of Tazghun town said, speaking on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n \u201cDuring those days of hardship, they became very pious people,\u201d the source said.<\/p>\n Later, police designated Atawulla and his relatives as a \u201ckey family\u201d to monitor and watched their every move, the source said.<\/p>\n \u201cPolice constantly searched their homes, removing scarves and veils from their women, and Atawulla was always busy rescuing either his son or sons-in-law from police custody,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cFor almost 10 years, this family had no peace,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Xinjiang\u2019s Turkic-speaking Uyghurs frequently chafe at what they consider ethnic discrimination and assaults on their Islamic culture by China\u2019s government in the name of what Beijing calls its fight against the \u201cThree Evils of terrorism, separatism, and religious extremism\u201d in the region.<\/p>\n Reported by Shohret Hoshur for RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service. Translated by Mamatjan Juma. Written in English by Richard Finney.<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" They had grown increasingly devout after losing land to Han Chinese in what they called an unfair business deal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1913,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-1914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1914"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=1914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}