Uighur Muslims Want China Killings Probe

“Those people, with no arms in hand, can no longer tolerate the cruelty by Chinese government.”

BEIJING – Protesting the latest deadly backlash in the restive Xinjiang, a Uighur Muslims advocacy group has called on China to allow an independent probe in killing eight Uighur Muslims by the Chinese police two days ago.

The Xinjiang regional government should “fully disclose all information on the violence occurred on Monday and allow an independent investigation to be conducted by international organs,” the World Uighur Congress (WUC), based in Munich, said in a statement cited by Agence France Presse (AFP) on Tuesday, December 31.

WUC has also urged the Chinese authorities to allow the entrance of the foreign media and government representatives to Shache County, which has witnessed the latest clashes, to guarantee ‘transparency’.

The congress demands come a day after the Chinese security forces announced the killing of eight Uighur Muslims, calming they were killed in an attack on Schache police station.

Authorities claimed that nine assailants, armed with knives and explosives, have attacked the police station setting fire to the police cars.

Beijing deemed the assault as an ‘organized terror’ attack, Xinhua news agency reported.

Deploring the deadly incident, WUC said that Uighurs’ killing was another episode of repressing the peaceful minority.

“This incident testifies to a recent trend of state-sponsored violence used to quell Uyghur dissent, whereby authorities ignore due process of the law,” WUC President Rebiya Kadeer said in a statement.

“Shoot and kill Uyghurs, label them terrorists, and then use counter-terrorism to justify the unlawful killings.”

The Schache uighur Muslim deaths were not the first this month.

Earlier on December 15, the Chinese police shot dead 14 people in China’s Muslim-majority province of Xinjiang, amid growing complaints of Chinese oppression of the Muslim minority in the region.

Uighur Muslims are a Turkish-speaking minority of 10.1 million in the northwestern Xinjiang region.

Xinjiang, which activists call East Turkestan, has been autonomous since 1955 but continues to be the subject of massive security crackdowns by Chinese authorities.

Rights groups accuse Chinese authorities of religious repression against Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang in the name of counter terrorism.

Oppressed Uighurs

Branded as ‘terrorists’ by the Beijing, Uighur Muslims have been enduring an escalating oppression for years.

“China increases the oppression and violence against Uyghurs since they cannot order the massacre of all the people in Eastern Turkistan in the glare of publicity,” Hidayet Oguzhan, Chairman of Eastern Turkistan Education and Solidarity Foundation, told the Anadolu Agency (AA).

“Uyghurs have been facing even more oppression after Chinese President Xi Jinping took the office,”

“Those people, with no arms in hand, can no longer tolerate the cruelty by Chinese government.”

The unique geostrategic location of the resources-rich Xinjiang (East Turkistan) makes it a precious land that China will never lose its grip on.

Beijing views the vast region of Xinjiang as an invaluable asset because of its crucial strategic location near Central Asia and its large oil and gas reserves.

“The topography of Eastern Turkistan is a natural barrier against external threats to China while its geostrategic position helps China to realize the policy of expansion into Eurasia,” Turkish academician Assoc. Prof. Dr. Erkin Ekrem told AA.

Muslims accuse the government of settling millions of ethnic Han in their territory with the ultimate goal of obliterating its identity and culture.

Analysts say the policy of transferring Han Chinese to Xinjiang to consolidate Beijing’s authority has increased the proportion of Han in the region from five percent in the 1940s to more than 40 percent now.

“In 10 year’s time, around 200 million Chinese people will be living in Eastern Turkistan,” Oguzhan said.

Despite the colonization bids to vanish the East Turkistan Culture, residents have preserved their identity over the past decades.

“People in Eastern Turkmenistan has developed a system of preserving their traditions, as well as their language and religion, against the oppression from Chinese government,” said Oguzhan.

“Uyghur Muslims are brave, religious, and devoted, and has their own way of self protection, even though they are not united under a certain community or sect.”