Two ethnic Uyghurs are removed from a flight in the troubled western region of Xinjiang one day after the attacks.<\/p>\n
2015-11-16<\/p>\n
The ruling Chinese Communist Party has stepped up its “anti-terrorism” campaign in the wake of Friday’s deadly attacks in Paris, in a move that overseas groups say will target the Uyghur ethnic group across the country.<\/p>\n
China’s police chief Guo Shengkun has ordered “strengthened patrols and intelligence gathering” after being briefed on Sunday about the attacks, according to a statement on the Ministry of Public Security’s official website.<\/p>\n
“Guo Shengkun ordered further strengthening of anti-terrorism intelligence analysis so as to perform precision strikes,” the statement said.<\/p>\n
Police must also “focus on … efforts to destroy violent terrorist activities before they happen,” it said, adding that the fight against terrorism was tantamount to “a people’s war.”<\/p>\n
“We must maintain a high level of threat and pressure in anti-terrorism work, and continue to strike hard at violent terrorists, crushing their arrogance,” the ministry said.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, foreign minister Wang Yi told a security meeting in Turkey ahead of the G20 summit that China strongly condemned the attacks in France, drawing a parallel with recent violence in its troubled northwestern region of Xinjiang, which many pro-independence Uyghurs refer to as “East Turkestan.”<\/p>\n
“The fight against terrorist forces in ‘East Turkestan’ should also be an important part of the international war on terror,” Wang said.<\/p>\n
As President Xi Jinping headed for Turkey on Saturday, Chinese authorities removed two Uyghur men from a flight to Turkey, a source close to the incident told RFA.<\/p>\n
“They got on the plane to Turkey in Xinjiang, and the plane was delayed for a very long time, and then they detained two Uyghurs, and removed them from the plane,” the source said.<\/p>\n
“I heard them described as terrorists, which I said was a bit extreme, and that they should be referred to as suspects.”<\/p>\n
But the source added: “It’s also likely that they were just preventing them from leaving China, because they don’t allow them to\u2014that’s quite normal.”<\/p>\n
“They were pulled off the plane, which was delayed because everyone had to get off the plane and go through security again,” the source added.<\/p>\n
Using threat of terrorism<\/strong><\/p>\n Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the World Uyghur Congress exile group, said the Chinese authorities consistently make use of the threat of terrorism to justify racial profiling, harassment and extra-judicial killings of Xinjiang’s Uyghur population, however.<\/p>\n “China has always taken every opportunity to use international terrorist attacks and the war on terror [to justify its own policies],” Raxit said.<\/p>\n “China’s official reporting of the the attacks in Paris has a political aim; to link Uyghurs to terrorism [in people’s minds],” he said.<\/p>\n “The Chinese government shoots Uyghurs who protest persecution under its rule, and then says they were terrorists\u2014yet another form of special policies aimed at the oppression of Uyghurs.”<\/p>\n China’s tightly controlled state media has covered the Paris attacks in detail, including commentary calling on the international community to avoid “double standards” and take Beijing’s anti-terror campaign at face value.<\/p>\n The Chinese Embassy in Paris on Sunday issued a security alert for its nationals, 1,300 of whom are currently in the French capital as part of tour groups.<\/p>\n The alert called on all Chinese nationals in France to stay indoors and pay close attention to police information and local media reports connected to the attacks in Paris.<\/p>\n It also called on Chinese travel agencies to step up security precautions for tour groups visiting France, official media reported.<\/p>\n French President Francois Hollande on Monday vowed to eradicate terrorism, saying that “France is at war,” following the attacks that left at least 129 dead and 352 wounded.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Islamic State, which has claimed responsibility for the attacks, warned that the United States could be next.<\/p>\n “I swear to God, as we struck France in its stronghold Paris, we will strike America in its stronghold, Washington,” the group said in a video released online.<\/p>\n France hit back on Sunday with air strikes that destroyed a jihadi training camp and a munitions dump in the city of Raqqa, where Iraqi intelligence officials say the attacks on Paris were planned.<\/p>\n Reported by Qiao Long for RFA’s Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Two ethnic Uyghurs are removed from a flight in the troubled western region of Xinjiang one day after the attacks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2197,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-2198","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\/2198","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=2198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2198"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=2198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}