There’s a long history of tensions between Chinese authorities in Beijing and the Uyghur people of East Turkistan (Xinjiang), a province in the remote far west of China. In recent weeks, a local imam who supported the Chinese government was stabbed to death outside a mosque in the city of Kashgar along the ancient Silk…
China is well on the way to one of its biggest crackdowns in the restive and remote northwestern region of Xinjiang (East Turkistan) since ethnic riots racked the capital of Urumqi in 2009. Numbers released in state-media reports and in court press releases from the region show that since May more than 800 people, most…
It’s not really “China’s Chechnya” yet, but the insurgency in Xinjiang (East Turkistan) is growing fast. Incidents of anti-Chinese violence are getting bigger and much more frequent. Since March, 176 people have been killed in six separate attacks on Chinese police and government officials, local collaborators and ordinary Chinese residents of Xinjiang (East Turkistan) Uighur…
A lawyer representing Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti, detained on charges of separatism, says the evidence he has been allowed to review by the prosecution so far is incomplete, while Chinese authorities in the troubled northwestern region of Xinjiang (East Turkistan) have yet to clarify whether he will be tried in secret. Tohti’s lawyer Li Fangping…
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is failing to deliver on its promises to quell violence in Xinjiang (East Turkistan). On July 28, bloody clashes between Uyghur protestors and para-military personnel in Yäkän (Ch. Shache) left at least 96 dead; leaders of Uyghur exile communities put the death toll at 2,000. Three days later, Jümä Tahir, the government-appointed…
The city of Karamay in China’s turbulent Xinjiang (East Turkistan) region is currently hosting the 13th Xinjiang (East Turkistan) Sports Games. To keep the competition safe from terrorism, the city government announced an unusual safety measure: A ban on “abnormal” Muslim-associated clothing and hairstyles on public transport. Xinjiang (East Turkistan) is home to the Uighur people, a…
Beijing bans some Muslims from observing Ramadan, or boarding public transport while veiled, but it allows millions of others to practice their religion without hindrance The road to Linxia, in China’s vast, sere northwest, is known locally as the Quran Belt, with a profusion of newly built mosques and Sufi shrines lining the motorway. Some…
A Uyghur farmer compelled to join an anti-terror campaign waged by Chinese authorities in the troubled Xinjiang (East Turkistan) region has been hacked to death by two murder suspects, local officials said, raising concerns among the ethnic minority group about the risk of joining such government operations. Tursun Emet was killed when he stopped the…
Chinese authorities in Xinjiang (East Turkistan) have detained an ethnic minority Uyghur man for spreading “rumors” after he alleged in an online post that Chinese security forces killed thousands of people in the troubled region’s Yarkand county earlier this month. The 22-year-old man uploaded the article onto an overseas website, the official Tianshan news website…
Enver Tohti was a surgeon in a hospital in Xinjiang (East Turkistan), in the northwestern part of China, when, in June 1995, he was instructed by his superior to prepare for an adventure — surgery in the field. In the morning, when the doctor and his team arrived at their destination, he realized they were…
