Now, a rebellion in Osttürkistan/China's west 3. Apr 2008

BEIJING: China has accused Muslims in the nation's northwest of trying to start a rebellion after protests broke out in the Xinjiang province. The protests come at a time when the embattled Chinese government has been engaged in curbing the Tibetan agitation.

A local official in Xinjiang, which borders Pakistan and Central Asia, confirmed that some elements were trying to mislead the people into an uprising. But the local government of Hetian, which confirmed the stir, made no mention of charges that the minority Uyghur people were driven by anger over the death of a local businessman in police custody. The Hetian government said in its website that a "small number of elements" tried to incite "splittism, create disturbances in the market place and even trick the masses into an uprising".

The instigators did not succeed in their ploy as the police got the support of the masses, it said. There were no injuries and the situation had returned to normal, it said. There were clear signs that the World Uyghur Congress, an organisation of the Muslim Uyghur people, was trying to cash in on the embarrassment caused to the Chinese government over the Tibet issue in the wake of the Olympic Games by encouraging agitation among the Turkish-speaking Uyghurs.

A section of the Uyghurs is fighting to carve out a nation called East Turkmenistan from China. They are known to sympathise with the cause of rebel Tibetans seeking an independent Tibet. The US government funded Radio Free Asia was among the first to relay the information saying that the agitation was caused by the death of a prominent Uyghur businessman and philanthropist Mutallip Hajim, 38, in police custody.

The World Uyghur Congress said the Uyghur demonstrators were seeking the release their leaders held in prison, an end of alleged religious repression and an end to the transfer of unmarried Uyghur girls to other parts of China as labourers. WUC claimed that unmarried Uyghur girls were often transferred to other parts of China under schemes like "poverty relief" and "technical training" but made to work at low levels in factories on poor pay.

The government said last month that a Uyghur woman had confessed to attempting to hijack and crash a Chinese passenger plane from Xinjiang as part of a terror campaign by a radical Islamic independence group.


http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Now_a_rebellion_in_Chinas_west/articleshow/2921322.cms