Riots Kill 155 in China

Image by shapeshift via Flickr

155 people were killed, over 1000 injured, and hundreds more arrested in China’s far west Xinjiang region on Sunday.

The violence started as a peaceful Sunday protest by 1,000 to 3,000 Uighurs, who are ethnic Muslims, but there’s little indication of how things spiraled out of control. The protest was organized in response to the death of two Uighur factory workers during a fight with Han Chinese coworkers last month.

Initially, 20 female police officers were assigned to control the peaceful crowd but Chinese troops moved in shortly after and then the crowd, apparently provoked by the appearance and demeanor of the troops, began to respond with escalating violence resulting in serious injuries amongst the Uighurs.

In Chinese culture there is a hierarchy of ethnicity that places the Uighers at the low end of the scale. Often ridiculed for their religion and their culture, the Uigurs typically respond with peaceful protests but Sunday's actions proved their willingness to respond with violence if provoked.

Clearly, moving troops into the area was unwarranted and only served to create tension amongst the Uigurs. Subsequently, the Chinese government placed the blame for the resulting riots on "foreign influences" as though the entire event was orchestrated from outside China.

The actions and finger-pointing of the Chinese government eerily emulate those of the Iranian government in response to the brutality they reigned on the people of Tehran following the elections on June 12th.

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