Fresh protests in restive Uyghuristan capital
Posted: 03 September 2009 1601 hrs


A relative cries during the funeral of a Han Chinese who was killed in riots in China's restive Urumqi in Xinjiang

BEIJING - Crowds of angry Han Chinese took to the streets of the restive city of Urumqi on Thursday, witnesses said, less than two months after deadly unrest rocked the capital of mainly Muslim Xinjiang.

Police ordered residents to stay indoors and stationed officers throughout the city, in a quick response aimed at staving off a second wave of bloodshed following that seen here in July, when nearly 200 people were killed.

The number of demonstrators, who appeared to be protesting against a series of reported syringe attacks in the city, was not immediately clear.

Witnesses described large crowds, with some putting the turnout in the thousands.

"There are about 10-20,000 people and many police in the street at every intersection. There are more than 100 police stationed every 400-500 metres," said a Han woman who runs a local medical clinic, asking not to be named.

"I heard there was a protest yesterday afternoon and I saw it myself today. They shouted, 'Protect our homeland.' Most of them are Han."

The woman said the government had warned residents about the syringe attacks.

The state Xinhua news agency said 15 people, whose ethnicity was not disclosed, had been arrested after attacking members of nine ethnic groups, including Han Chinese and Uighurs.

Xinhua said no one had been infected or poisoned in the attacks.

"The reason for the protest was because people were stabbed by the needles," the woman at the clinic said.

A shop owner located near the central Nanmen area said "many" people were still protesting in the late afternoon.

"I have shut my shop. I am afraid to go out. Many people are marching outside," the woman said before hanging up abruptly.

"The Han have staged a march so the police imposed controls and ordered us to stay indoors," Halisha, a Uighur eye doctor, told AFP by phone.

The July 5 violence saw Uighurs clash with Han Chinese in the worst ethnic unrest to hit the country in decades.

Uighurs say the riots occurred after Urumqi police tried to break up forcibly a peaceful protest over a brawl involving factory workers in distant southern China. The fighting between Uighurs and Han left two Uighurs dead, state media reported.

China, however, has accused exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer, who lives in the United States, of orchestrating the unrest. She has denied any involvement.

Dilxat Raxit, the Munich-based spokesman of Kadeer's World Uighur Congress, put the number of protesters in Thursday's unrest at 700 to 800, based on witness accounts. He said about 10 Uighurs had been beaten and taken to hospital.

"The situation is very complicated -- we want the international community to send people to Xinjiang to investigate the situation there," he told AFP.

Another witness, a female office worker in downtown Urumqi, said the situation in the city had been "very chaotic and especially serious" in the past two days.

- AFP/ir

Source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/1002638/1/.html