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Thousands of Han Chinese mobs, armed with bats and other weapons, are roaming the streets, hunting down Uighurs. |
URUMQI — With thousands of rampaging, armed Han Chinese mobs, running amok in the streets of Urumqi city, helpless Uighurs had no other option but to run for their lives.
"There is too much hatred around now," Ali, an Uighur man, told Agence France Presse (AFP) on Wednesday, July 8.
Thousands of Han Chinese mobs, armed with bats and other weapons, are roaming the streets, hunting down Uighurs.
"Get them! Strike! Strike! Strike!" dozens of Han Chinese armed with makeshift weapons screamed as they saw three Muslim Uighur men.
Hearing the chants of the Han mob, the terrified trio began running but only two managed to escape leaving the third to face horror and dozens of attackers.
Not far away in central Urumqi, about 20 armed Han mobsters beat and kicked a Uighur man nearly to death.
"I'm too afraid to go home tonight," said Halisha, a 30-year-old eye doctor, insisting that he prefers to sleep in his small clinic rather than venturing into the dangerous streets.
"Who knows if I can trust my neighbors or the people on the street? It's safer here for now."
Urumqi has been boiling since Sunday, when nearly 1000 Uighurs took to the streets to protest discrimination and cultural and religious controls.
At least 156 people were killed and more than 1,000 wounded when police unleashed a massive crackdown on the Turkish-speaking minority of more than eight million.
The unrest has drawn global condemnation, with organizations and Western leaders urging China to exercise self restraint.
Several human rights groups have expressed concern over the fate of 1,434 people who were taken into police custody over Sunday’s unrest, saying they could be tortured or mistreated.
Genocide
The rampage of Han Chinese continued as Beijing poured thousands of troops into the city in a massive show of force.
According to eyewitnesses, none of the Han attackers was arrested by the security forces, who only worked on dispersing the mob.
Exiled Uighur groups warned of a "genocide" against Muslims in the Xinjiang region.
"A true genocide of the Uighur people is in progress," Torgan Tozakhunov, deputy director of the Uighur cultural centre in Kazakhstan, home to 220,000 Uighurs, told AFP.
"The Chinese authorities will have to answer for these crimes in front of the international community."
Turkish Prime Minister Racab Tayyib Erdogan demanded on Wednesday an to "savagery" committed against Uighur Muslims.
"Our expectation is for these incidents that have reached the level of savagery to be rapidly stopped," he said in televised remarks.
"Necessary measures must be taken to prevent this brutality. We are temporary member of the UN Security Council for 2009-2010. We will also take these events into consideration there."
Uighur Muslims accuses the government of settling millions of ethnic Han in their territory, a vast region with large oil and gas reserves, with the ultimate goal of obliterating its identity and culture.
They also cite a recent government plan that has brought the teaching of Mandarin Chinese in Xinjiang schools, replacing their local dialect.
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