Within hours of the February 14 knife attack in Pishan county, Xinjiang, China\u2019s state media released identical reports…<\/p>\n
Maya Wang
China Researcher
\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200bFEBRUARY 26, 2017 8:00PM EST<\/p>\n
Within hours of the February 14 knife attack<\/a> in Pishan county, Xinjiang, China\u2019s state media released identical reports: Three assailants attacked people in a residential district, killing five while injuring another five, and the assailants were killed by police officers who had swiftly arrived at the scene. Only the Jiangnan Metropolitan News<\/em> defied a censorship order and kept open its online comment function on this story, providing a rare glimpse into netizens\u2019 views<\/a> of the attack.<\/p>\n Although authorities had given no such information, netizens immediately jumped to the conclusion that the incident, which took place in the region home to 10 million ethnic Uyghur Muslims, was a terrorist attack by Islamists, and the victims were ethnic Han Chinese. Most remarks were virulent and derogatory, equating Islam with terrorism, calling it an \u201cevil cult\u201d and Muslims \u201cdogs\u201d and \u201cleeches.\u201d Muslims who sought to distinguish Islam from terrorism were dismissed as \u201cwhitewashers\u201d by commenters.<\/p>\n Many netizens lamented the authorities\u2019 \u201cpreferential treatment towards minorities,\u201d and complained that government censorship is unfairly protecting Muslims. A number called for collective punishment: \u201cFamilies of terrorists should all be killed!\u201d wrote one, while another advocated for the eradication of \u201cthe entire [Uyghur] ethnic group.\u201d Calls on the Jiangnan<\/em> platform to demolish all mosques seemed mild in comparison.<\/p>\n None of the postings commented on the government\u2019s pervasive ethnic and religious discrimination against Uyghurs.<\/a> No wonder \u2013 many of these readers have no access to sources of information independent of the government\u2019s, and those who speak up about such grievances, such as Uyghur economist Ilham Tohti<\/a>, are silenced and sentenced to lengthy prison terms for \u201csplittism.\u201d<\/p>\n