{"id":4558,"date":"2018-11-21T18:50:59","date_gmt":"2018-11-21T18:50:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iuhrdf.org\/en\/2018\/11\/21\/wary-unrest-among-uighur-minority-china-locks-down-xinjiang-region\/"},"modified":"2018-11-21T18:50:59","modified_gmt":"2018-11-21T18:50:59","slug":"wary-unrest-among-uighur-minority-china-locks-down-xinjiang-region","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wary-unrest-among-uighur-minority-china-locks-down-xinjiang-region\/","title":{"rendered":"Wary Of Unrest Among Uighur Minority, China Locks Down Xinjiang Region"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the Xinjiang International Grand Bazaar in the heart of Urumqi, everything is bought and sold from tiny stalls blasting local music, in a square filled with Islamic architecture. It’s a place that feels more like Central Asia than China.<\/span><\/p>\n

That might be because this western Chinese city, the capital of China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region<\/a>, is closer to Kabul than Beijing. And recently it received something else in common with Kabul: A hefty security presence.<\/span><\/p>\n

“It makes me feel safer,” says one shoe vendor. “They’ve built police stations every few blocks or so. The police check on us every day, no matter if you’re a doctor, teacher, anyone. It’s all for our safety.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Increasingly draconian security measures make this vendor unusually cheerful \u2014 perhaps because a camera above her stall is capturing her conversation with a foreign journalist. I mention this to the woman, whose aquiline nose and large, deep-set eyes do not look like what most people think of as Chinese.<\/span><\/p>\n

She dismisses this line of thinking. She says she and other Uighurs <\/a>\u2014 members of a Muslim ethnic minority who make up more than 40 percent of Xinjiang’s population \u2014 are treated well by China’s leaders.<\/span><\/p>\n

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