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Police arrest 70 in China's restive
Xinjiang-group
 03 Apr 2008 12:42:42 GMT
Source: Reuters
(Adds Xinhua on Party organisations in Tibet)
BEIJING, April 3 (Reuters) - Police have arrested 70
people from China's minority Uighur ethnic group in
the Silk Road oasis city of Kashgar, fearing trouble
when the Olympic torch passes through the city in
June, an exile group said on Thursday.
Xinjiang regional government's news office denied
there had been arrests and an officer at Kashgar's
police headquarters said he knew nothing, but local
residents said security has been tightened ahead of
August's Beijing Games.
The report comes at a tense time for China as it
confronts ethnic unrest on two fronts. In Xinjiang,
protesters in one city last month rallied for more
religious freedom and, according to a government Web
site, held up independence flags.
In Tibet, Buddhist monk-led marches turned into an
anti-Chinese riot in the capital Lhasa last month and
touched off a rash of demonstrations throughout the
region.
On Thursday, an official Tibet news Web site
(http://www.chinatibetnews.com) said police had caught
more than 800 people linked to the Lhasa violence and
280 people had turned themselves in.
On a trip to Yunnan, China's most diverse province,
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao offered increased
government support for poor areas populated by ethnic
minorities but called for unity.
"All ethnic groups form one big family. We must be
united and help each other, to prosper and make
progress together," the official Xinhua news agency
quoted Wen as saying.
The recent unrest has dented propaganda claims of
harmony, elicited concern from abroad and cast a
shadow over the upcoming Olympics, which the Chinese
leadership has hoped will be a chance to showcase the
country's development.
China has responded by cranking up security, sending
thousands of anti-riot troops into Tibetan-populated
areas and launching a propaganda blitz.
Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the World Uyghur Congress,
a Germany-based exile group that seeks independence,
said the authorities were using the Olympics as an
excuse to crack down on the Turkic-speaking Muslim
Uighurs.
"One world one dream?" he said, referring to Beijing's
Olympic motto. "Is that right? The Uighurs have a
different dream ... We don't want the Olympics here."
Elsewhere in Xinjiang, U.S. government-supported Radio
Free Asia reported police raids on a handful of homes,
possibly in search of arms.
Police and locals reached by telephone denied the
report.
A hotel employee in Yili said, however, that security
had been increased since early February, but that
everything was otherwise normal. "We are going to our
jobs every day and kids are going to school," the
employee said. "It's not like Tibet."
Separatist ambitions in Xinjiang have long been a
source of concern for Chinese officials, and rights
groups accused China of using the U.S.-led war on
terror as an excuse for widespread suppression of
Uighurs and to curtail religious freedoms.
In and around Tibet, suppression continued, according
to the International Campaign for Tibet, which said on
Thursday it had received reports of mass detentions,
monasteries under siege and authorities in one case
targeting people using cell phones out of apparent
fear that news of the crackdown would leak out.
The top Communist Party official in Tibet said the
Himalayan region would reopen to domestic and foreign
tourists as soon as possible, and probably by May 1,
after authorities cranked up security after the March
14 riot in Lhasa.
China blames the exiled Dalai Lama, whom it labels a
separatist, and his followers for stirring up the
Lhasa violence in which it says 19 people died. The
Tibet government-in-exile says around 140 people died.
Beijing has ordered officials in Tibet and
Tibetan-populated areas in neighbouring provinces to
strengthen grassroots Communist Party organisations
and make them "fortresses" in the fight against
separatism, Xinhua said.
"Party cadres must withstand tests, always keep a
clear mind ... in the struggle against splittist plots
by the Dalai clique," Xinhua quoted a Party decree as
saying. (Writing by John Ruwitch; Editing by Nick
Macfie and Alex Richardson) .
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