Jan 15, 2015

East Turkestan: Police Kill Six People Allegedly Trying to Detonate a Bomb


Chinese authorities killed six Uyghurs, who they claim where attacking the police and trying to detonate a bomb. Yet, Uyghur activists claim that these accusations are false and blamed the local authorities for trying to cover up their use of excessive force. The incident is one of many examples of the sharp increase in violence between the Uyghur community and Chinese authorities in recent years.

 

Below is an article published by World Bulletin:

 

Chinese police have killed six Uighurs what they described as "mobsters" in the troubled Xinjiang (East Turkestan), state news agency Xinhua said on Monday, 12 January 2015, the latest violence to rock the area in recent years.

Hundreds of people have been killed in resource-rich Xinjiang, strategically located on the borders of central Asia, in violence in the past two years between the Muslim Uighur people who call the region home and ethnic majority Han Chinese.

Monday's violence came two months after 15 people were killed when a group threw explosives into a crowded street of vendors selling food in Xinjiang in November 2014.

Police in Shule county, south of the old Silk Road city of Kashgar, had acted on a tip-off about "a suspicious person carrying an explosive device", the Xinjiang government said on its official news website.

An "axe-wielding individual" tried to attack police officers and set off an explosive device, prompting the officers to shoot him, the government said.

The report added that police trying to dispose of an explosive device were attacked by five "thugs" who sought to detonate it, but did not make clear if this was a separate incident. Police killed the men, according to the government.

The report said there were no other casualties, but gave no details of the assailants.

China's allegations were an "excuse to cover up the excessive use of force", said Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for exile group the World Uyghur Congress.

"China's hostile policy will only provoke more turbulence there," he said in emailed comments.

East Turkestan is the home of Uighurs. Exiled Uighur groups and human rights activists say the government's repressive policies in Xinjiang, including controls on Islam, have provoked unrest.

Xinjiang is crucial to China's growing energy needs, but analysts say the bulk of the proceeds from sales of its resources has gone to majority Han Chinese, stoking resentment among Uighurs.