URUMQI, China: Some Muslim Uighurs in this restive Chinese city remained in hiding on Saturday, nearly a week after a deadly communal unrest killed 184 people. The government, meanwhile, released a breakdown of the death toll.
Residents of the capital of Xinjiang said many Uighurs refused to venture out for fear of being attacked by Han Chinese or arrested. Halisha, an eye doctor who works in the Uighur part of town, said he was too afraid to return to his home in a district of Urumqi where people from mainly China’s dominant Han ethnic group live.
“I am still scared because, you know, there are a lot of Han where I live,” the 30-year-old said after six nights staying at his employer’s clinic. “I am afraid of getting beaten because there have been a lot of Uighurs beaten up there. All of us just hope that everything returns to normal soon.”
One Uighur businessman, who did not want to be named, said several of his staff were sleeping at his workplace because they believed they could be unfairly caught up in the sweep by Chinese security forces. “Some of them don’t want to go home because they are afraid they will be arrested,” he said. Thousands of Uighurs protested Sunday amid frustration over what they say has been decades of repressive Chinese rule. The protest turned violent with attacks on Han Chinese and the government said 184 people died in Sunday’s riots.
Han Chinese then took to the streets early this week wielding knives, poles, meat cleavers and other makeshift weapons and vowing vengeance against the Uighurs.
One Uighur owner of a store that sells leather goods such as saddles said Saturday staff were hiding at his shop. “They are afraid of possibly getting beaten by Han. There is also still a lot of fear about being arrested,” he said.
Identifying the ethnic background of the dead, the government’s Xinhua News Agency cited provincial officials as saying 137 victims were Han while 46 were Uighurs and one was a Hui, another Muslim group.
Uighurs disputed the new figures, citing reports that security forces fired on Uighurs during Sunday’s protest and in following days. “I’ve heard that more than 100 Uighurs have died, but nobody wants to talk about it in public,” said one Uighur man who did not want to give his name.
Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged China to stop the “assimilation” of the Uighur minority on Saturday, the day after he said the unrest in Xinjiang was “like a genocide.” “We ask the government of China to abandon assimilation, because such assimilation can do you no good,” Erdogan said in a speech to his Justice and Development Party broadcast on television.
“No state, no society which attacks the lives and rights of innocent civilians can guarantee its security and prosperity,” he warned. “Whether they are Turkic Uighurs or Chinese, we cannot tolerate such atrocities,” Erdogan said. “The suffering of the Uighurs is ours.”
