Xinjiang Seethes A Year After Riots

By Staff Writers
Beijing (AFP) June 13, 2010
Courtesy Of "Space War"

One year after deadly riots in China's Xinjiang, Beijing has reaffirmed policies that have angered Muslims in the region, raising the spectre of further unrest, a top Uighur activistsaid.

In an interview with AFP, Ilham Tohti -- an outspoken professor, blogger and member of the Muslim Uighur minority -- said China's "carrot and stick" pairing of economic development with tight security controls had failed Uighurs.

It has instead benefited members of China's majority Han ethnicity who are flooding into the region, while Xinjiang's eight million Uighurs are becoming further marginalised in their ancient homeland, with no end in sight, he said.

"The situation for Uighurs in Xinjiang is increasingly bad," Tohti, 40, said in his modest flat on the campus of Beijing's Minzu University of China, where he lectures -- under watchful eyes -- on economics and Uighur issues.

"In this climate, it is very hard to bring together Uighurs and Han, immigrants and locals. This is a huge problem but the government has come up with no plan for it."

Xinjiang's Uighurs -- a Muslim, Turkic-speaking people -- have for decades alleged Chinese political, religious and cultural oppression in the vast region abutting Central Asia.

Their anger erupted on July 5 last year when Uighur rioters savagely attacked Han in the capital Urumqi, leaving nearly 200 people dead and up to 1,700 injured, according to official figures.

Amid the unrest, Tohti -- perhaps the top Uighur activist within China -- disappeared into police custody for six weeks.

Authorities also shut down his Uighur Online website -- which criticised governmentpolicy in Xinjiang while advocating Han-Uighur understanding -- alleging it was fuelling the unrest.

Tohti has since relaunched the site on an overseas server, though it remains blocked in China, and has resumed his lectures despite periodic interference by the authorities. He says he carefully measures his words to prevent provoking the authorities.

In April, China's government removed Xinjiang's unpopular hardline Communist Party boss, Wang Lequan, who had held the post for nearly 15 years, and pledged to raise living standards in the region.

But "nothing has really changed. Only the propaganda has changed," said the diminutive, chain-smoking Tohti, speaking fluent Mandarin.

Economic growth alone -- even if it did benefit Uighurs -- cannot appease a people with centuries of history and culture who seek true autonomy, he said.

"It's as if someone went to a pharmacy with a headache and they gave them medicine for foot pain," said Tohti, an animated figure who punctuates his points with wry smirks, raised eyebrows, and heavy sighs.

"We need an economic life but we also need a cultural life. We need respect," he said.

First, he said, China must stop flouting its own laws to oppress Uighurs -- especially the law making Xinjiang a "Uighur Autonomous Region". The designation exists only on paper, he said, with the Beijing-dominated Communist Party in control.

Eschewing radicalism, Tohti says Uighurs must seek change through Chinese law, adding: "There is no other way out."

To this end he has translated the autonomy law into Uighur, distributing it electronically and via printed copies through a network of supporters in Xinjiang, and arguing that Uighurs must break their own shackles of ignorance.

"The problem? We don't understand our own problem. We don't understand our own rights. We don't understand how to protect our rights. The most pressing task is to cultivate our people and spread knowledge," he said.

Besides education, there is the issue of procreation. Tohti urges all Uighurs to take advantage of their legal right, as an ethnic minority, to have more than one child as a way of magnifying their voice.

Yet that voice has been stifled since the riots, he said, as China shut down Xinjiang's Internet access during the unrest, saying instigators were using it to foment violence.

The government touted the lifting of those restrictions in May as a return to normalcy but Tohti said at least 80 Uighur sites that were accessible before the riots remained blocked.

Security in Xinjiang has become draconian, he adds.

Many Uighurs were buoyed when ethnic cousin Turkey criticised China's handling of the unrest.

But Tohti calls that misplaced, saying Turkey is unlikely to challenge a rising, economically powerful China on the issue and that Uighurs cannot expect overseas help.

What does he tell the many Uighurs convinced that China will never allow true cultural and political autonomy?

"I can only say, let us wait and see," he said.