Uighur Riots Revisited - Much Worse Than Originally Thought

A follow up now from Sunday's story about protests by ethnic Uighurs in China. On Sunday initial reports said that three people were killed in the riots that followed, it turns out that the number of dead was really 156.

Or perhaps more. The Chinese government said that of the 156 casualties, most were ethnic Han Chinese - which prompted this question from the Huffington Post's Eric Anderson on why China was dividing the casualties up along ethnic lines, since, he asks, aren't they all Chinese citizens? Uighur exile groups, for their part, say the number killed is actually much, much higher, and that 90% of the casualties are in fact Uighurs.

The Uighurs are also saying that more than a thousand Uighur men have been detained in mass arrests following Sunday's riot. The BBC World News had some interesting footage out of Xinjiang on Tuesday - a peaceful protest by Uighur women demanding the release of their sons/husbands/brothers was met by a huge Chinese police presence; meanwhile a large mob of Han Chinese, armed with clubs and sticks and vowing "revenge" against the Uighurs, were shown running through the streets of Urumqi with no police in sight.

It's hard to figure out what exactly is happening in Xinjiang - China has restricted the images coming out of the province (the BBC footage was a rare exception) - widespread outages are reported in Internet and cellphone service. It is clear that there was a large Uighur (and they say peaceful) rally on Sunday to protest the murder of two Uighur men at the hands of a Han Chinese mob in Guangdong in Southern China. That rally was met with a massive police response, things got ugly and people were killed. Since then there have been large-scale arrests of Uighurs in Xinjiang, and Han Chinese have been seen attacking Uighurs on the street apparently in revenge for the deaths of Han Chinese on Sunday.

Beijing is painting this as an uprising by an ethnic group with dreams of independence from China and a willingness to use violence to get it - even though Uighur groups say that they were waving Chinese flags at the Sunday rally and were only asking that the laws of their country, China, be enforced against the Han Chinese mob in Guangdong. It's hard to take Beijing's word at face value, since they have long portrayed the Uighurs in a negative light, even when there's no evidence to support their claims. Let's keep in mind that even after deciding they were innocent any terrorist activities, the United States kept 23 Uighur men at Guantanamo Bay for years because they were sure the men would be arrested, likely tortured and possibly shot by authorities as terrorists if returned to China.

So for a view of the other side of the story you can check out this piece written by Uighur leader in exile Rebiya Kadeer (who ironically was once considered a Chinese 'success story' as a Muslim businesswoman who was prospering in modern China).