The mostly Muslim Uyghur ethnic group is being targeted amid a massive security clampdown in the city.<\/p>\n
2016-08-23<\/span><\/p>\n \u200b<\/span>Authorities in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou are targeting restaurants owned by the mostly Muslim Uyghur ethnic group ahead of the city\u2019s hosting of the G20 summit in early September.<\/span> The mostly Muslim Uyghur ethnic group is being targeted amid a massive security clampdown in the city.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2898,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-2899","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\/2899","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=2899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2899"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=2899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
As rights activists call on the leaders of the G20 nations not to ignore China’s human rights violations during the Sept. 4-5 summit, local residents said Uyghur-run businesses are being singled out for special security checks and closure by police.<\/span>
\u201cThere is a noodle place run by people from Xinjiang near my home, and suddenly four busloads of police parked outside and got out,\u201d a Hangzhou resident surnamed Sun told RFA on Tuesday.<\/span>
\u201cI thought they were going to arrest people. They were even carrying guns,\u201d she said.<\/span>
Neighbors later told her the police were under orders to shutter the restaurant for the duration of the G20 summit, she said.<\/span>
\u201cThey brought the guns because they were afraid the Uyghurs would be unwilling to leave,\u201d Sun said. \u201cThen they searched the whole place to make sure there was nobody left inside \u2026 and shuttered it and sealed the doors with paper strips.\u201d<\/span>
\u201cSo now they are temporarily closed,\u201d she said.<\/span>
Calls to a number of Uyghur-run restaurants in the city rang unanswered during office hours on Tuesday.<\/span>
‘Stability maintenance’<\/b>
In recent weeks, Hangzhou city authorities have shut down businesses and industrial facilities across the scenic city, ordered increased security checks on citizens, and packed large numbers of its citizens off on vacation in a bid to “maintain stability,” residents said.<\/span>
Two mobile divisions of the People\u2019s Armed Police have been stationed in the city on standby, including armored vehicles, which are parked in the city center and near the stadium, according to posts on social media.<\/span>
For many, the security measures are a step too far, with checkpoints on all major routes into the city causing long delays for drivers.<\/span>
One resident tweeted a photo on Tuesday showing an LED display by a major highway banning \u201call odd and even license plate numbers\u201d from entering Hangzhou.<\/span>
Meanwhile, police detained a woman after she refused to take a sip of a bottle of water she was carrying, when requested by the driver, local residents said.<\/span>
Photos supplied by bystanders showed two police officers frog-marching a woman away from the bus.<\/span>
\u201cThe police checks are very stringent,\u201d Sun said. \u201cEvery vehicle and every person entering Hangzhou has to be searched, along with all of their baggage. The searches are very thorough.\u201d<\/span>
\u201cI think they\u2019re really overdoing it this time,\u201d she said. \u201cDuring the two days of the summit, all businesses near the venue will be forced to close and everyone will have two days off work.\u201d<\/span>
Sun said she has been given eight days\u2019 leave.<\/span>
\u201cThe only thing left to do is to leave town and take a vacation,\u201d she said. \u201cThe city\u2019s empty.\u201d<\/span>
She said Hangzhou residents have been offered free entry to nearby tourist attractions, including Huang Shan, and to tourist destinations in the southwestern region of Guangxi, in a bid to get them to leave the city.<\/span>
Crackdown ‘worst in decades’<\/b>
The G20 summit comes amid what activists are saying is the worst crackdown on rights activists in decades, and campaigners want global leaders to hold the ruling Chinese Communist Party to account.<\/span>
Rights groups are citing the persecution of civil society groups and the increased targeting of dissidents, religious believers, and ethnic minorities in the name of \u201cstability maintenance\u201d under President Xi Jinping.<\/span>
Hangzhou-based dissidents, including rights activist Zou Wei, have already been taken out of town on enforced \u201cvacations,\u201d activists told RFA.<\/span>
And rights activist Jiang Yalin, who has campaigned on behalf of families hit by the melamine-tainted infant milk powder scandal, said she has also had a visit from the local \u201cstability maintenance\u201d office asking about her plans.<\/span>
\u201cSome people from the Jinhua [district] stability maintenance office came by to look for me a couple of days ago, my husband told me,\u201d she said. \u201cThey wanted to know where I would be during the G20 in Hangzhou.”<\/span>
Jiang said she had already left town, however.<\/span>
“My husband told me to take our kid outside the the city to get away from the summer heat,\u201d she said.<\/span>
Reported by Qiao Long for RFA\u2019s Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"