Memet Eli was undergoing political re-education after being forcibly returned to his township by police, sources say.<\/p>\n
2017-02-27<\/p>\n
A Uyghur baker under police investigation killed five people in Xinjiang\u2019s Kashgar prefecture earlier this month after being brought to a hospital for medical care, sources in the region said.<\/p>\n
Memet Eli, aged about 30, used an axe to carry out his Feb. 9 attack, also injuring an unknown number of people, sources told RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe attack took place in Yengisar [county] hospital,\u201d a police officer in the county\u2019s Saghan township said, speaking on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n
\u201cMemet Eli had vomited blood the day before, and Abduhalik, the security chief in the village where Eli was under investigation, took him to the hospital for a checkup.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leaving Eli waiting in line, Abduhalik went to get some food, and when he returned, \u201cEli suddenly confronted him and hit him in the head with an axe,\u201d the source said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter that, he attacked two Chinese shopkeepers\u2014one the owner of a pharmacy and the other the owner of a food store\u2014and after that he rushed back into the hospital and killed a nurse inside,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Also speaking to RFA, Ablikim, deputy director of the Yengisar Hospital, confirmed the attack had taken place, adding that Eli was captured alive shortly afterward.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt happened at around 6:30 p.m. on Feb. 9,\u201d he said. \u201cI was outside the hospital when it happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI later learned that Zhang Caixia, one of our nurses, was among the people killed in the attack, while several were wounded.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI took two of the wounded to Kerambagh Hospital, a prefectural hospital located in Kashgar city, and one of them\u2014a shop owner\u2014died there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
‘Political re-education’<\/strong><\/p>\n Eli, a resident of Yengisar\u2019s Setil township, had recently been forcibly returned from Korla city by police for investigation, and was undergoing \u201cpolitical re-education,\u201d township security chief Yusup Mesum told RFA.<\/p>\n \u201cHe had vomited blood in the village office on the morning of the day before the attack, and that is why the security chief took him to the hospital for a checkup,\u201d Mesum said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t know if he got the axe from his home before visiting the hospital, or whether he bought it from a nearby market. None of this is clear, and different explanations are circulating on the streets.\u201d<\/p>\n Eli is believed to have eight children from two different marriages, Mesum said.<\/p>\n \u201cRight now, all his family members and officials in his village have been detained for investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n China has vowed to crack down on what it calls religious extremism in Xinjiang, and regularly conducts \u201cstrike hard\u201d campaigns including police raids on Uyghur households, restrictions on Islamic practices, and curbs on the culture and language of the Uyghur people, including videos and other material.<\/p>\n While China blames Uyghur extremists for terrorist attacks, experts outside China say Beijing has exaggerated the threat from the Uyghurs and that repressive domestic policies are responsible for an upsurge in violence there that has left hundreds dead since 2009.<\/p>\n Reported by Shohret Hoshur for RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service. Translated by Mamatjan Juma. Written in English by Richard Finney.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Memet Eli was undergoing political re-education after being forcibly returned to his township by police, sources say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3454,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-3455","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\/3455","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=3455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3455"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=3455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}