Sources say the deadly altercation started when a guard attempted to prevent a juvenile inmate from praying.<\/p>\n
2016-06-01<\/p>\n
At least five people including two policemen died in a bloody incident in a juvenile jail in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in western China in late May that sources tell RFA was sparked when Uyghur youths rebelled after a Chinese guard shot and killed an inmate for praying.<\/p>\n
While details are sketchy because Chinese authorities in Urumqi are trying to keep the incident quiet, RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service has learned that the incident occurred in the early morning on May 25 or 26 in the Urumqi No.1 Juvenile Labor Camp located in Ulanbay district of Urumqi, the capital of the restive Xinjiang region.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know the incident occurred in Ulanbay jail, but I cannot tell you any details about it, because we are ordered to keep it secret,\u201d a police official at Ghalibiyet (in Chinese, Shengli) Road police station told RFA.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven if you ask me a thousand times, I will repeat the same thing over and over again. We cannot reveal anything on this incident. Period. We have a very urgent directive on this,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
While police have been ordered to keep silent on the issue, and little has been said by anyone directly involved, one police officer told RFA he was on patrol when he heard about the incident.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was informed that an incident had happened in Ulanbay jail on the 26th of May at 2 a.m., but I was not called to the scene,\u201d said the officer, who also requested anonymity. \u201cI did the street patrol as I was ordered, but a SWAT team was sent to the jail and we were notified by 6 a.m. that the incident was contained, so I returned home.\u201d<\/p>\n
The officer added: \u201cThere was some discussion among the police about how many people were killed and who they were. After we have a written report on this, then we can say something about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Inmate education<\/strong><\/p>\n While the cause of the incident remains unclear and first-hand accounts are scarce, a police officer told RFA that he overheard another police who said an officer named Hamit was \u201ceducating\u201d an inmate who prayed in the jail.<\/p>\n The so-called \u201ceducation\u201d was harsh and the inmate protested against Hamit by brandishing a chair. Hamit then attempted to subdue the inmate by firing toward him, but he missed what he was shooting at and the shot was fatal, the officer said.<\/p>\n After the shooting, 50 to 60 other inmates rushed the guards\u2019 office, surrounded three guards, and argued with them, but the SWAT team arrived and fired on the, the officer said.<\/p>\n \u201cA number of inmates were killed, but I do not know if any police were among the dead,\u201d the officer said. \u201cI heard that inmates also injured the guards before the SWAT team arrived.\u201d<\/p>\n According to a letter from an RFA listener: \u201cThe police officer who died in the incident was named Hemit and he graduated from Banong Fuzhong, a high school affiliated with Xinjiang Agricultural University.\u201d<\/p>\n Staff at the high school and the university confirmed they had heard about the incident, telling RFA that 10 juvenile prisoners escaped from the camp after killing two police officers.<\/p>\n The staff said three of the prisoners were killed and seven others captured as they tried to escape. Staff at the schools identified the police officers killed in the incident as Hemit Halmurat, 29, and Yong Chun, 41.<\/p>\n \u201cThe martyr Hemit graduated from our school a long time ago,\u201d said Zheng Guojing, a staff member at Banong Fuzhong.<\/p>\n \u201cThe incident occurred on May 25th in the early morning. We visited his parents the next day and expressed our condolences,\u201d Zheng Guojing said. \u201cOn May 26th the authorities held a memorial ceremony at the juvenile camp, our school\u2019s director attended the ceremony, and we happened to get a little information about the incident from the director.\u201d<\/p>\n Ma Zhiqiang, a staff member at Banong Agricultural University, said he received an official notice from the Urumqi City Police Department saying: \u201cOn the early morning of May 25th, 10 juvenile prisoners escaped from the camp after killing two police officers in the guardhouse. We got the situation under control by 10 a.m. on May 26. Three prisoners have already been killed, and seven were captured.\u201d<\/p>\n Halmurat Eset, the father of Hemit Halmurat, said his son had studied Russian for two years, and was only working at the prison because he could find no other job.<\/p>\n ‘Sorry your son was killed on duty’<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cHe started to work at that place against his will,\u201d Halmurat Eset told RFA. \u201cUnfortunately I have not been given any detailed information about the incident, other than being told: \u2018Sorry, your son was killed on duty.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The story Halmurat Eset tells differs slightly from the version obtained by RFA.<\/p>\n \u201cAccording to one of my son\u2019s friends in the police department, the police officer Yong Chun shot a prisoner, and other prisoners attacked Yong Chun and killed him. My son then blocked the prisoners while they attempted to escape and they then killed my son. Actually, my son had good relations with the prisoners.\u201d<\/p>\n Saniye Tursun, the mother of Hemit Halmurat, said officials haven\u2019t been forthcoming with details of her son\u2019s death other than saying he was stabbed.<\/p>\n \u201cI am wondering how the prisoners could get a knife,\u201d she said. \u201cI just saw my son\u2019s face in the funeral room. His face was turning blue. \u201c<\/p>\n According to Saniye Tursun, all the prisoners in the group had been charged with endangering state security and most had been punished for watching illegal religious films on cell phones.<\/p>\n A staff member at the Huagong Institute of Banong Agricultural University told RFA that the notice of the incident was very short, and left more questions than answers.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no information on why or how the prisoners escaped,\u201d the staffer said. \u201cWhat was the cause of the escape? Some say they were tortured. Some say the prisoners clashed with police in the camp, but it is clear that they knew that they couldn\u2019t go anywhere even if they got out from the camp. I believe that they faced some urgent situation or incident which pushed them to try to escape from jail as a last resort.\u201d<\/p>\n Dolqun Isa, executive chairman of the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress, told RFA they had received some information about the incident.<\/p>\n \u201cAccording to our source, the torture of the prisoner by police caused the unrest,\u201d he said. \u201cThe unrest ended so bloodily, we are wondering what to say to Chinese authorities at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n Dolqun Isa said it is time for more transparency from China about this and other incidents.<\/p>\n \u201cAt this stage we call on China to disclose information about the incident, rather than keep it secret,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is helpful to avoid disturbing rumors and exaggerated information which could trigger ethnic clashes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe also call on international organizations to pay attention the situation of East Turkestan,\u201d he said, using the preferred Uyghur term for the region. \u201cAnd to send an independent investigative group to look into incidents related to juveniles\u2019 rights and safety.\u201d<\/p>\n Reported by RFA’s Uyghur Service. Translated by Mamatjan Juma. Written in English by Brooks Boliek.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sources say the deadly altercation started when a guard attempted to prevent a juvenile inmate from praying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-2724","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\/2724","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=2724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2724"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=2724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}