Countering Riots, China Rounds Up Hundreds

[Coventina]

Source: New York Times

URUMQI, China — The two boys were seized while kneading dough at a sidewalk bakery.

The livery driver went out to get a drink of water and did not come home.

Tuer Shunjal, a vegetable vendor, was bundled off with four of his neighbors when he made the mistake of peering out from a hallway bathroom during a police sweep of his building. “They threw a shirt over his head and led him away without saying a word,” said his wife, Resuangul.

In the two weeks since ethnic riots tore through Urumqi, the regional capital of Xinjiang, killing more than 190 people and injuring more than 1,700, security forces have been combing the city and detaining hundreds of people, many of them Uighur men whom the authorities blame for much of the slaughter.

The Chinese government has promised harsh punishment for those who had a hand in the violence, which erupted July 5 after a rally by ethnic Uighurs angry over the murder of two factory workers in a distant province. First came the packs of young Uighurs, then the Han Chinese mobs seeking revenge.

“To those who have committed crimes with cruel means, we will execute them,” Li Zhi, the top Communist Party official in Urumqi, said July 8.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/world/asia/20xinjiang.html?em

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As usual, it's assumed that the Uighurs are guilty and the Han are innocent....

:puke:

[McCamy Taylor]

1. Yep, ethnic violence is ugly. The U.S. has good reason to know that, too.

I guess our government tolerates what goes on in China, because the same things happen here.