Almost 100 people were killed during attacks on a police station and
government offices in China’s far western region of Xinjiang early last
week, state media said Sunday, giving fresh details on one of the worst
incidents of unrest in years.
It is reported, 59 “freedom fighter” were gunned down
by security forces in Shache county in Xinjiang’s far south, while 37
civilians were killed in the attacks on July 28.
State media had reported the incident a day later, saying dozens of
people had been killed when knife-wielding attackers had staged assaults
in two towns in the region.
It is unclear why the government waited so long to announce detailed
casualties, though bad news has sometimes been covered up or delayed in
the past.
“Police confiscated long knives, axes as well as the terrorists’ banners that exhorted ‘holy war’,” Xinhua said.
Xinjiang, home to the Muslim Uighur people, who speak a Turkic
language, has been beset for years by violence which the government
blames on Islamist militants or separatists who it says want an
independent state called East Turkestan.
Exiled Uighur groups and human rights activists say the government’s
repressive policies in Xinjiang, including controls on Islam, have
provoked unrest – a claim Beijing denies.
The attack took place at the end of the holy month of Ramadan, which
officials had tried to get Muslims in Xinjiang to ignore, in an
indication of what rights groups say is discrimination targeting the
Uighurs.
Hundreds have been killed in Xinjiang in the past year and a half,
and the last week saw a series of deadly incidents, including the murder
of a prominent pro-government imam at a major mosque in the old Silk
Road city of Kashgar.
Source: Reuters.
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