Chinese authorities said Friday that 11 people, believed to be ethnic minority Uyghurs, were killed when they allegedly attacked a police patrol in the latest deadly violence in northwestern China\u2019s restive Xinjiang region.<\/p>\n
2014-02-14<\/p>\n
Chinese authorities said Friday that 11 people, believed to be ethnic minority Uyghurs, were killed when they allegedly attacked a police patrol in the latest deadly violence in northwestern China\u2019s restive Xinjiang region.<\/p>\n
Calling them terrorists, the official Xinhua news agency said eight were shot dead by police while three others were killed by several liquefied natural gas cylinders in their car which they had attempted to use as \u201csuicide bombs\u201d in the incident in Aksu prefecture\u2019s Uchturpan (in Chinese, Wushi) county.<\/p>\n
Sources in the area told RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service that a curfew had been imposed in the area amid tight security.<\/p>\n
Exile rights groups have suggested that the attack could be retaliation for a sweeping security crackdown against Uyghurs in recent months in Xinjiang.<\/p>\n
According to official figures about 100 people are believed to have been killed since April last year\u2014many of them Uyghurs accused by the authorities of terrorism and separatism.<\/p>\n
The World Uyghur Congress blamed the latest incident on what it called China’s \u201cviolent\u201d policies in Xinjiang, home to 10 million mostly Muslim, Turkic-speaking Uyghurs.<\/p>\n
“Chinese armed officers’ violent rooting out and provocation are the reason for Uighur resistance,” World Uyghur Congress spokesman Dilxat Raxit said in an emailed statement to international news agencies.<\/p>\n
“The so-called terrorism is China’s political excuse of directly shooting dead those who take a stand,” he said.<\/p>\n
Xinhua cited police as saying that in the Uchturpan incident, the Uyghurs were riding motorbikes and cars and were armed with explosive devices and knives when they confronted a police team as they prepared to go on patrol near a park around 4:00 p.m.<\/p>\n
Two civilians and two police officers were injured in the raid, it said, adding that one suspect had been captured.<\/p>\n
It said five police vehicles were damaged or destroyed during the incident.<\/p>\n
Security increased<\/strong><\/p>\n Uchturpan county police and government officials refused to talk to RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service, but an employee at the county\u2019s public credit office confirmed the incident and said that he had heard the attackers were Uyghurs.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, this incident occurred in a place called Tokuzak, close to the county center,\u201d he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n \u201cWe heard that the people who attacked the police might have been Uyghurs, but I do not know the details at all.\u201d<\/p>\n The employee said that he was unsure how many people had died during the attack and that authorities had stepped up security in the aftermath of the incident, blocking the flow of information.<\/p>\n \u201cThe TV and cable signals were cut off for two hours \u2026 We also lost power for a while, so we could not use the TV, radio, or telephone and we were unable to get more information,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a curfew being enforced right now and we are standing on guard at our work station.\u201d<\/p>\n A resident of Uchturpan, who also asked that RFA not use his name, confirmed that the area was currently in the midst of a clampdown by authorities.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, this incident took place today at a location very close to my home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201c[The authorities] enforced a curfew and we are not allowed to go outside. A while ago, I saw numerous armed police blocking the street and not allowing anybody to pass. I do not know any other details.\u201d<\/p>\n A doctor at the county hospital said the medical center had been \u201cinvolved with what happened,\u201d but said he had not been given any details about the incident.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were firmly ordered to stay at our work stations and to carry out our duties, but we were not informed about the incident,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe received information about the shooting from outside sources. I do not know if it was reported on the radio, TV, or other media.\u201d<\/p>\n The doctor said he had been told that a curfew was in effect for the area.<\/p>\n String of attacks<\/strong><\/p>\n In recent violence in Aksu, a Uyghur village secretary for the ruling Chinese Communist Party, who was known for supporting strict pro-government policies, was stabbed to death on Jan. 22 by \u201cseparatists\u201d acting on behalf of Uyghurs languishing in jail for unknown offenses, authorities said.<\/p>\n In a separate incident a week later in a neighboring village, police conducting house-to-house security checks shot and killed a Uyghur father of two, saying he refused to allow them into his home.<\/p>\n Aksu was also the site of a \u201cseparatist\u201d attack on Jan. 15 by three Uyghurs on a police station which ended when authorities shot the men dead.<\/p>\n Rights groups and experts say Beijing exaggerates the terrorism threat to take the heat off domestic policies that cause unrest or to justify the authorities’ use of force against Uyghurs.<\/p>\n Uyghur exile groups say Chinese authorities in Xinjiang have launched a New Year \u201cstrike hard\u201d campaign targeting cell phones, computers, religious materials, and other \u201ccultural products\u201d belonging to Uyghurs.<\/p>\n Raxit told RFA last month that the government has been \u201cstepping up these raids, even to the point of armed police shooting Uyghurs who refuse to cooperate and offer some kind of resistance.\u201d<\/p>\n He warned that \u201cany provocation could lead to further violence.\u201d<\/p>\n Xinhua reported that \u201csome 190 terrorist attacks were recorded in Xinjiang in 2012, increasing by a significant margin from 2011.\u201d<\/p>\n Reported by Eset Sulaiman for RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service. Translated by Mamatjan Juma. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chinese authorities said Friday that 11 people, believed to be ethnic minority Uyghurs, were killed when they allegedly attacked a police patrol in the latest deadly violence in northwestern China\u2019s restive Xinjiang region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-346","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\/346","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=346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}