The following is a letter from an anonymous foreign traveler currently in Kashgar, Xinjiang. The New Dominion presents this letter for the consideration and edification of its readers. There has been little news out of Kashgar since Sunday, and this may shed some light on Monday’s demonstrations and the events that followed.
Two days [...]
The first wave of Uyghur actions in Urumqi on Sunday evening brought at least a thousand people, mostly young Uyghur men, probably members of Urumqi’s small middle class, into the streets. They occupied public spaces and shouted, “God is great!” Over 150 perished, with some journalists estimating around 30 Uyghurs and 120 members [...]
We at TND recommend this article at Global Voices for a strikingly nuanced discussion of Chinese attitudes towards the riots in Urumqi. Reading, translating, and analyzing Chinese-language on-line sources, they present some different viewpoints from Han and Uyghurs.
The following photographs of the July 5 riots (and their aftermath) in Urumqi are from the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet.
The following photographs are from a slideshow compiled by the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet.
UPDATE: Xinhua claims that the Urumqi authorities dispatched 20,000 police and military personnel to quell the riots. They used “tear gas grenades, stun grenades, and high-pressure water guns” on the demonstrators. Others have suggested that they were fired upon.
According to Xinhua, yesterday’s riots in Urumqi resulted in 140 deaths and 828 injured. [...]