More than 100 killed in China protests
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- InformedTexan
- added this
Several hundred people were arrested after a protest, in the city of Urumqi on Sunday, turned violent.
Beijing says Uighurs went on the rampage but one exiled Uighur leader says police fired on students.
The protest was reportedly prompted by a deadly fight between Uighurs and Han Chinese in southern China last month.
The BBC's Chris Hogg in Shanghai says this is one of the most serious clashes between the authorities and demonstrators in China since Tiananmen Square in 1989.
'Dark day'
Eyewitnesses said the violence started on Sunday in Urumqi after a protest of a few hundred people grew to more than 1,000.
Xinhua says the protesters carried knives, bricks and batons, smashed cars and stores, and fought with security forces.
Wu Nong, news director for the Xinjiang government, said more than 260 vehicles were attacked and more than 200 shops and houses damaged.
Most of the violence is reported to have taken place in the city centre, around Renmin (People's) Square, Jiefang and Xinhua South Roads and the Bazaar.
The police presence was reported to be heavy on Monday.
Adam Grode, an American studying in Urumqi, told Associated Press: "There are soldiers everywhere, police are at all the corners. Traffic has completely stopped."
A witness in the Xinjiang city of Kashgar told AP there was a protest there on Monday of about 300 people but there were no clashes with police.
It is still unclear who died in Urumqi and why so many were killed.
The Xinjiang government blamed separatist Uighurs based abroad for orchestrating attacks on ethnic Han Chinese.
But Uighur groups insisted their protest was peaceful and had fallen victim to state violence, with police firing indiscriminately on protesters in Urumqi.
Dolkun Isa, a spokesman for the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) in Munich, disputed the official figures, saying the protest was 10,000 strong and that 600 people were killed.
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- tags:
- News, News and Politics, China, Protest, 2 more
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Scarabus
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Good time to remember the well known passage from John Donne's Meditation XVII. We are all diminished by the death of Michael Jackson. And also by the deaths in China. And the Middle East. And Somalia. "News value" by no means equals human value. We are all a part of the same continent of humanity:
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.
- 2 years ago
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Scarabus
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twitterbot
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@ecetk on twitter says "protests, abusive governments, internet blocks... quite a trend in the world #Xinjiang"
- 2 years ago
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twitterbot
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current89
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Hmm i could believe that 600 people were killed, as China has a massive population. However the source is somewhat biased. Either way, I hope the ethnic tensions in China are resolved, peacefully.
- 2 years ago
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current89
