Uighur Activist Accuses China of Covering Up Xinjiang Killings

[Roybot]

A Uighur American activist is accusing China of covering up the killing of about a dozen Muslims during a raid in the northwestern region of Xinjiang last week.

Reports in the province say police conducted the raid against alleged terrorists. A state-run newspaper in the town of Kashgar, near the site of the raid, said a memorial service was conducted this week for a policeman killed in the incident.

There has been no official confirmation of deaths, casualties or arrests among the minority Uighurs involved in the incident.

Alim Seytoff, President of the Uighur American Association, told VOA's Mandarin service that Chinese officials are covering it up. "Chinese police force shot at a native Uighur ethnic group that was conducting a religious study and prayer, killing at least 22 people and arresting four or five others. The Chinese government didn't want to report the incident after the killing, and instead they covered up the fact. China's official media began to reveal the incident only after the international media exposed the truth. But just as they did before, the official media said the victims are terrorists," said Seytoff.

His account of the incident cannot be independently verified, but Radio Free Asia also has reported that 22 Uighurs were killed in the raid.

Earlier this month, authorities in Kashgar sentenced two men to death and three others to prison for deadly clashes that authorities are called a terrorist attack. The violence occurred in late April and left 21 dead.

Beijing has said radical Muslim groups in the area pose a threat to security. The millions of Uighurs who live in Xinjiang frequently complain about restrictions on religion and culture.

Xinjiang shares its vast border with Central Asia, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

This report was produced in collaboration with the VOA Mandarin service.

Uighur Activist Accuses China of Covering Up Xinjiang Killings

 

[cyphercide]

These must be the 'lesser Muslims' that nobody cares about. Can you even imagine if the same piece of news had originated from India?


The budding Jinnahs out here would've had a roman holiday with it!!!

 

[Wholegrain]

If the victims were unarmed, then they would have just been arrested by the police without any violence. Shooting over twenty people tends to leave quite a massive amount of blood at the scene and cause a massive commotion in a major city like Kashgar, and the police generally don't like that happening.

If the police shoot at people because they were praying, then there would be millions of dead people all over Xinjiang, because millions there pray every day without police shooting at them. Seytoff is claiming that the police just randomly shot up and killed this specific group because they felt like it.

The police don't randomly and arbitrarily shoot at people for no reason and risk incurring a massive commotion in a major city like Kashgar. Also most police and officials in Kashgar and the rest of the Tarim basin (southern Xinjiang) are Uyghur. If a Han gets a job in the Tarim Basin, he will have to speak Uyghur because its dominated by them. Most of the police killed in the June incident were Uyghurs.

Uyghur American Association is also funded by the National Endowment for Democracy which is funded by the US Congress.

National Endowment for Democracy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Genesis]

So even though it said cannot be verified, it is taken as the truth? Is the Bin Laden Raid a random raid as well that resulted in death?

You know how shooting 22 people works? bullets kill people but only if shot in fatal areas, in a shooting like this, no way there wasn't a struggle. Besides the fact Chinese cops are forbidden to use lethal force or any force unless something crazy goes down.

The US has more cases of police brutality than China. So something must have gone down.

 

[Roybot]

If the victims were unarmed, then they would have just been arrested by the police without any violence. Shooting over twenty people tends to leave quite a massive amount of blood at the scene and cause a massive commotion in a major city like Kashgar, and the police generally don't like that happening.

If the police shoot at people because they were praying, then there would be millions of dead people all over Xinjiang, because millions there pray every day. Seytoff is claiming that the police just randomly shot up and killed this specific group because they felt like it.

The police don't randomly and arbitrarily shoot at people for no reason and risk incurring a massive commotion in a major city like Kashgar. Also most police in Kashgar and the Tarim basin are Uyghur.

It didn't happen in Kashgar. Whats your next excuse?

Death Toll in Xinjiang Police Shootout Climbs As Exile Group Blasts Raid

Authorities in China's Xinjiang region said Tuesday that they had shot dead 22 Uyghurs accused of terrorism last week, revising higher an initial death toll in one of the biggest crackdowns on the ethnic minority Muslim group.

They said they have also arrested four Uyghurs in a raid on a house where the 22 were gunned down on Aug. 20 at the edge of a desert area in the Yilkiqi township in Kargilik (in Chinese, Yecheng) county in Xinjiang's southwestern Kashgar prefecture.

The death toll was revised upward after police and other sources had said at the weekend that based on initial reports, 15 Uyghurs and one Han Chinese policeman were killed in the "anti-terror" operation.

The Yilkiqi shooting follows a spate of violence across Xinjiang in recent months that has led to massive arrests, with hundreds of Uyghurs taken into custody for interrogations by the authorities in the troubled northwestern region of China.

"Two days after the incident, the township government informed us at a meeting that 22 people had died and four others were arrested," Mahmut Han, the chief of Islamic Association of Yilkiqi Township, told RFA's Uyghur Service.

Helicopter hunt

According to officials, he said, the shootout was ordered after police, backed by a helicopter, closely monitored "suspicious activity" for about a week around the house where the Uyghurs had been living.

"The township's [ruling Chinese Communist] Party secretary criticized us [the township's officials] for not being alert in detecting such activities," Mahmut Han said.

The deputy chief of Yilkiqi township, Alim Hamid, said that he was at the scene of the shootout, following which "22 bodies in black bags were carried out by police to an unknown destination."

"Police informed us that those who were killed were terrorists," he told RFA. "But they didn't specify what wrong they had done."

"Now we have strengthened security in the township in line with orders from the government and we are on the lookout for people from out of town," Alim Hamid said. "They will be identified and their particulars given to the police."

Chinese authorities usually blame outbreaks of violence in Xinjiang on "terrorists" among the region's ethnic minority Muslim Uyghurs.

But rights groups and experts say Beijing exaggerates the terrorism threat to take the heat off domestic policies that cause unrest or to justify the authorities' use of force against Uyghurs.

Mahmut Han said four of the dead were from Yilkiqi while the rest were believed to be from a neighboring township, though their identities had not been revealed.

Immediate burial


Sources said the 22 were believed to have been buried immediately without their next of kin being informed.

"I heard that the bodies were taken and buried together on a hilltop in a neighboring township," a Yilkiqi resident told RFA, speaking on condition of anonymity. He cited contacts as telling him that the police killed the 22 while they were performing their prayers. Six knives and axes were recovered from the scene, police had said earlier. (Such heavily armed terrorists )

"When they gathered for prayers, police surrounded them and fired at them," the resident said. He said that he used to pass by the house at which the 22 were gunned down while on his daily way to work.

He believed that the house owner may have been among those shot dead and that the others had been working for him at a nearby farm.

"They work in the day and pray at night at the house," the resident said.

@Aeronaut your thoughts?

So even though it said cannot be verified, it is taken as the truth? Is the Bin Laden Raid a random raid as well that resulted in death?

You know how shooting 22 people works? bullets kill people but only if shot in fatal areas, in a shooting like this, no way there wasn't a struggle. Besides the fact Chinese cops are forbidden to use lethal force or any force unless something crazy goes down.

The US has more cases of police brutality than China. So something must have gone down.

Your own authorities have accepted it, try a different excuse.

 

[Wholegrain]

It didn't happen in Kashgar. Whats your next excuse?

Death Toll in Xinjiang Police Shootout Climbs As Exile Group Blasts Raid

@Aeronaut your thoughts?

So you think the police just felt like killing over twenty random people just because they were praying? I'm sorry but governments do have common sense when not to **** off people for no reason.

Knives were exactly the weapons used in previous attacks on the police. Go look at previous threads opened on this forum on attacks in Xnjiang.

 

[Roybot]

So you think the police just felt like killing over twenty random people just because they were praying? I'm sorry but governments do have common sense when not to **** off people for no reason.

Knives were exactly the weapons used in previous attacks on the police. Go look at previous threads opened on this forum on attacks in Xnjiang.

Knife is also a very common household tool, are you telling me having a knife or an axe at home is a good enough reason to be shot dead by the Chinese police?

22 People were killed while offering Namaz, and only 6 knives and axes(again very common tool in villages) was found from the house. Did they have to shoot these people, and even bury the body without contacting their family members?

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-08-28/world/41508077_1_xinjiang-native-uighur-muslim-prayers

 

[Wholegrain]

Knife is also a very common household tool, are you telling me having a knife or an axe at home is a good enough reason to be shot dead by the Chinese police?

22 People were killed while offering Namaz, and only 6 knives and axes(again very common tool in villages) was found from the house. Did they have to shoot these people, and even bury the body without contacting their family members?

MILLIONS of Uyghurs do Namaz five times a day in Xinjiang, and don't get shot at. If the villagers rushed at police using the knives or axes, what should the police do?

Knife attacks in Xinjiang:

http://www.defence.pk/forums/china-...njiang-violence-rises-35-a-4.html#post4466513

Gasoline Bomb Attack on Police Station in Hotan

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/13/w...es-five-from-restive-chinese-region.html?_r=0

In April, community watch workers came across a room used by the defendants and their associates and reported their suspicions to the police. Fearing exposure, the men used machetes and axes to attack the community workers and police officers.

 

[Roybot]

MILLIONS of Uyghurs do Namaz five times a day in Xinjiang, and don't get shot at. If the villagers rushed at police using the knives or axes, what should the police do?

Knife attacks in Xinjiang:

http://www.defence.pk/forums/china-...njiang-violence-rises-35-a-4.html#post4466513

Gasoline Bomb Attack on Police Station in Hotan

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/13/w...es-five-from-restive-chinese-region.html?_r=0

Read the report. They were being observed from a helicopter, the cops went in, shot them dead and buried them. No evidence given, no proof nothing, heck they didn't even bother to inform the family members before burying the dead bodies, cause obviously the family members would have asked questions.

Had this incident happened anywhere else, people would demand details, answers.

 

[Genesis]

It didn't happen in Kashgar. Whats your next excuse?

Death Toll in Xinjiang Police Shootout Climbs As Exile Group Blasts Raid

@Aeronaut your thoughts?



Your own authorities have accepted it, try a different excuse.

accepted that they are terrorists.

 

[Roybot]

accepted that they are terrorists.

That's ok mate. I understand, being a Chinese you have to tow the official line and have no other option.

 

[Jackdaws]

It is quite sad for the Chinese - if they ask for democracy, the Govt. rolls tanks over them; if they pray then they are killed.

 

[Kyusuibu Honbu]

The Xinjaing issue is a mess-up from start, right from Mao's policies of ethnic dilution

 

[Wholegrain]

It didn't happen in Kashgar. Whats your next excuse?

Death Toll in Xinjiang Police Shootout Climbs As Exile Group Blasts Raid

@Aeronaut your thoughts?



Your own authorities have accepted it, try a different excuse.

According to officials, he said, the shootout was ordered after police, backed by a helicopter, closely monitored "suspicious activity" for about a week around the house where the Uyghurs had been living.

"The township's [ruling Chinese Communist] Party secretary criticized us [the township's officials] for not being alert in detecting such activities," Mahmut Han said.

Gotta love how they deliberately leave out the name of the township's Communist party Secretary. Why? Because the majority of Communist officials and police in the Tarim Basin (southern Xinjiang) are Uyghur. It doesn't look good for portraying it as discrimination and religious violence. You can be 100% sure that the Party Secretary for that township and the local police are Uyghurs. You have to know the Uyghur language to get a job in the Tarim, not Chinese.

Only when the paramilitary police are summoned into Xinjiang from other parts of the country, then you can be sure they are Han. Almost all the local police in the Tarim Basin are Uyghur.

The Xinjaing issue is a mess-up from start, right from Mao's policies of ethnic dilution

No. The victims of ethnic dilution were the Dzunghars, not the Uyghurs. Dzhungaria (northern Xinjiang) is not native Uyghur land, the Dzunghars are the natives there. The Uyghurs in Dzungharia migrated to there from the Tarim Basin where they are native to.

http://www.defence.pk/forums/china-...ur-demographics-han-immigration-xinjiang.html

This incident occured in the Tarim Basin (Southern Xinjiang), which is majority Uyghur and has very little Han people. The police and Communist party officials in Tarim Basin are majority Uyghur.

 

[Roybot]

Gotta love how they deliberately leave out the name of the township's Communist party Secretary. Why? Because the majority of Communist officials and police in the Tarim Basin (southern Xinjiang) are Uyghur. It doesn't look good for portraying it as discrimination and religious violence.

Only when the paramilitary police are summoned into Xinjiang from other parts of the country, then you can be sure they are Han. Almost all the local police in the Tarim Basin are Uyghur.


http://www.defence.pk/forums/china-...ur-demographics-han-immigration-xinjiang.html

This incident occured in the Tarim Basin (Southern Xinjiang), which is majority Uyghur and has very little Han people. The police and Communist party officials in Tarim Basin are majority Uyghur.

Do point out how and where did I deliberately "leave out" the name the township's Communist party Secretary.?

Why are you so eager to prove that its the Uyghur Muslims who must have done something wrong here. Would you be willing to give this benefit of doubt to others had a similar incident happened in some other country?

P.S: Are you Chinese?