Our thoughts go out today to the reported 31 people killed REPORT and many injured in the series of explosions in Urumchi, the capital of occupied East Turkestan, known to China’s regime as Xinjiang.
China’s authorities have swiftly determined ‘terrorism’ as the cause and laid blame firmly upon elements within the Uyghur population. If we are to accept Beijing’s claims then the flames of dissent are being fanned by external extremist forces, its a familiar account which is being uncritically reported as fact by western media.
The details and perpetrators will no doubt be difficult to independently establish, and we should assess such events against the ever present reality that China’s regime is notoriously censorial and manipulative on the issue of East Turkestan, like Tibet and Southern Mongolia a land which has suffered decades of oppression and violence courtesy of Chinese rule.
What is known however is that China is waging an ideological war on the subject of East Turkestan and for years has been actively portraying Uyghurs as Islamic terrorists, a charge that is backed more by a cynically constructed narrative than objectively established facts.
It may well be that people in the region have decided to launch an armed campaign against China, the resulting suffering is a cause of deep concern, yet a reactionary response, reliant upon a regime that specializes in terror itself, should be tempered with an understanding of the context of vicious colonization, oppression and exploitation which Uyghurs have endured. What terrorism will they again suffer as China places Urumchi under a military lock-down?
Yesterday’s blast which caused death and injury at Urumchi railway station in East Turkestan is drawn from a well poisoned over decades of violent repression against the Uyghur people, by a Chinese regime that is determined to assimilate and erode the culture and national identity of that Central Asian land. Ignored by a corrupted United Nations, virtually invisible to Muslim states whose support and attention is focused upon the great injustice of Palestine what options do Uyghurs actually have?
As the world looks on at the bombing, presented through the distorting lens of China’s propaganda ministry, shocked and appalled, just what does it expect from those whose land and freedom have been stolen? Uyghur culture is under siege, swamped by Chinese colonization, while across East Turkestan Chinese troops occupy every city and town, which are now polluted and gaudy Chinese sprawls.
Downtown Urumchi
Image:archivenet
A once highly cultured state has become a Chinese colony, exploited and oppressed, with its natural resources sucked dry to service the economy of the tyrant. The Uyghur people denied the most fundamental of freedoms, women forcibly sterilized, a culture in chains. It is of course a grim reality that China’s authorities prefer you were ignorant of, how better to conceal such tyranny than by character assassination!
No Freedom In East Turkestan
Image:archivenet
This is an agenda that operates behind China’s reportage on East Turkestan, a dark and cynical motive to portray the region as a laboratory for unrest and terrorism. In a breathtaking display of hypocrisy China’s psychopathic leadership, rather like a rapist criticizing a woman for resisting his assault, protests against even the mildest form of dissent.
Meanwhile China is engaged in an ideological war that seeks to deceive international opinion on the subject of East Turkestan, seen most tellingly in coverage of the attack in Urumchi. It places great value upon the role of psychological operations, and its potential to distort the perceptions of a target audience, in this case via a compliant and largely uncritical global media. Such manipulation has become a favored tool of the Chinese security and propaganda agencies See File
Image:archivenet
In 2000 China established the Institute of Psywar of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army which trains officers in a range of psychological warfare techniques, including disinformation and media manipulation.
As noted by Chinese military academics Wang and Yang:
“In modern times the vast development in information, science, psychology, the science of broad-casting, and other sciences, and in particular the emergence of new and high technologies such as satellite communications,electronic computers, networking technology, and multimedia technology, provide a firm theoretical foundation and modern tools for psychological warfare.” (Source-Wang Zhenxing and Yang Suping, “On PSYWAR in Recent High-Tech Local Wars,” Junshi Kexue [China Military Science] December 20, 2000, pp. 127-33)
Within the twisted world of disinformation nothing is ever as it appears and without condoning the loss of life or injury, we need to exercise caution in responding to events such as the bombing at Urumchi. Perhaps too we can remember the decades of repression and suffering endured by the Uyghur people, whose plight is callously ignored by the international community.
As Human Rights Watch http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2005/04/10/china-religious-repression-uighur-muslims joined calls for restraint from China, in its response to protests in Urumchi, East Turkestan (re-named as Xinjiang by communist China) further demonstrations appear to have emerged following the killing of over 150 people on Sunday’s peaceful protest. Reports indicate a predictably forceful and oppressive response from Chinese security forces ,with thousands of troops on the streets of the East Tukestan capital, large number of indiscriminate arrests have been reported, with one source claiming that over 1,000 Uyghurs had been forcibly detained since the demonstration on Sunday.
Today Uyghur demonstrators took to the streets once more, demanding the release of those who had been taken from their homes by communist Chinese security forces, around 200 Uyghur women mounted a demonstration as international journalists were being taken around Urumchi on what was a propaganda exercise by the communist authorities. The women were protesting against the arrest of their husbands during a crackdown by the Chinese security forces. Following the mass arrests hundreds of Uyghurs confronted heavily-armed riot police demanding the release of those taken in the crackdown following Sunday’s protests.
Urumchi Under Chinese Military Occupation
Image:ap
Local witnessses, reported on the newswire, described Chinese security forces sweeping through areas of Urumchi making house-to-house arrest. One woman, Maliya, said: “My husband was taken away yesterday by police. They didn’t say why. They just took him away.”Abdul Ali, a Uyghur man in his twenties who had taken off his shirt, held up his clenched fist. “They’ve been arresting us for no reason and it’s time for us to fight back.”
In an interview with German Television (DW-TV) German Human Rights Commissioner Guenther Nooke on Monday July 6 spoke out against the violence between Chinese Security forces and Uyghurs in East Turkestan (renamed Xinjiang by communist China).
Deutsche Welle:How does the German government view the events in the Xinjiang province [sic]?
Guenther Nooke:We have not been in a position to come to an official assessment because not enough information has been made available yet, but of course we know that there have been ongoing problems with the Uighurs because they are seen by the leaders in Beijing, and by the Chinese in general, as suspected terrorists. This has led to tensions between the Han Chinese and the Uighurs.
Deutsche Welle: What sort of influence can the German government exercise?
Guenther Nooke: I think we have to call on the Beijing leadership to act in accordance with the rule of law, even if there are grey areas, and properly investigate situations like the one in the toy factory in southern China, which seems to have sparked the unrest, and that they refrain from reacting with disproportionate force. That is unacceptable, no matter what factors may have contributed it, including the possibility that demonstrators committed acts of violence.
Latest reports now claim that over 150 people have been killed during the bloody crackdown by communist Chinese security forces during what was a peaceful demonstration in Urumchi. The overwhelming majority of deaths would have been Uyghurs, who faced troop carriers, hundreds of body-armoured securty forces and machines guns, as revleaded by the disturbing footage from events in Lhasa during April 2008, China’s response to any form of mass protest, no matter how ordered, is to use excessive and brute violence.
Meanwhile in a gesture of staggering hypocrisy the US White House claims it’s deeply concerned by reports of dozens of deaths and injuries. In a statement issued from Moscow, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the White House urges everyone in East Turkestan (re-named Xinjiang by communist China) to exercise restraint. It will be recalled that the United Sates in 2002 allowed Chinese security officers to abuse and forcibly interrogate innocent Uyghurs being held illegally in Guantanamo Prison, while the current President chose not oppose the forcible relocation of Uyghurs to a remote island in the Pacific, following their release from Camp X-Ray, having been found completely innocent of any crimes by a US Judge.
Reports from communist China’s propaganda machine Xinhua state that 140 people have been killed and more than 800 injured following a brutal crack-down by Chinese security forces of a peaceful demonstration in the capital city of Urumchi, East Turkestan (renamed as Xinjiang by communist China. Other sources in the region have claimed that the death-toll “was still climbing.”
Uyghur exiles condemned the crackdown, Alim Seytoff, vice president of the Washington, D.C.-based Uyghur American Association said
“We are extremely saddened by the heavy-handed use of force by the Chinese security forces against the peaceful demonstrators. We ask the international community to condemn China’s killing of innocent Uyhgurs. This is a very dark day in the history of the Uyghur people”
Meanwhile Beijing has again been actively msirepresenting events, describing the protest as a violent riot, which they claim was orchestrated by exiled Uyghurs. The occupying regime in East Turkestan has accused former businesswoman now living in America, Rebiya Kadeer, of generating events via the telephone and Internet.
Communist Chinese puppet-governor, Nur Bekri, said in a televised address earlier today that “Rebiya had phone conversations with people in China on July 5 in order to incite and Web sites … were used to orchestrate the incitement and spread propaganda.”
China’s Ministry of Deception was eager to present the protests as “a pre-empted, organized violent crime. It is instigated and directed from abroad and carried out by outlaws in the country.”
Alim Seytoff, in a telephone conversation from Washington, D.C., replied that that the accusations were baseless.
“It’s common practice for the Chinese government to accuse Ms. Kadeer for any unrest in East Turkestan and His Holiness the Dalai Lama for any unrest in Tibet” he said.
A major political protest has been reported in Urumchi, capital of East Turkestan (Central Asian nation occupied by communist China and re-named as Xinjiang) According to a number of sources, including a Chinese News Agency, thousands of Uyghurs took to the streets to protest against continuing suppression , human rights abuses and injustice as a result of Chinese rule.
Indulging in the same slanted reportage used to describe political demonstrations inside Tibet, the Chinese media was quick to present the protests as riots claiming that so-called rioters were “attacking passersby [sic]and setting fire to vehicles”. However according to a number of local Uyghur sources the demonstration was peaceful until Chinese securitry forces began to use excessively violent force.
Local people reported that armed security forces and troop carriers arrived on the scene, using tear gas and water canons, later firing volleys of shots above the demonstration. Around 300 people have been reportedly arrested and there are reports of a number of deaths and injuries, although no firm details have yet emerged.
A report in the LA Times featured a response from Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the World Uyghur Congress, “Under Chinese law, we should have the right for a peaceful protest again what the Chinese government is doing to our people” He considered the demonstration as the most serious incident of unrest in the East Turkestan capital city.
Videos uploaded onto the Internet http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-EVRZEUyCMhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvIIXuIcGj8 revealed thousands of protesters marching on the market. The scenes were reminiscent of events in Lhasa during March and April of 2008, as decades of anger by Tibetans erupted into pro-independence demonstrations The protests today were sparked in part as a result of the cold-blooded June 26 killing of two young Uyghur men at a factory in China’s Guangdong province. Uyghur sources reported that the men were beaten to death by a crazed mob, outraged by false rumors that they had sexually harassed Chinese-Han women.
The head of the Japan Uighur Association, Ilham Mahmut, informed the Times of India that
“At 5pm local time about 3,000 Uighur people gathered in Urumqi and demonstrated and about 1,000 Chinese police confronted them, and I heard that two Uighur people are already dead,” Mahmut said.
“The Chinese police tried to disband the demonstration and they used electric cattle prods and they fired guns into the air as warning shots. As we speak about 300 Uighur people have been already arrested and I’ve heard two people died because Chinese police used electric cattle prods.”
Image:original pierrej/graphic from @tibettruth
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