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Those hoping that the Xinjiang riot death count would be contained once the day was over are going to be incredibly disappointed. It's day two over there and it seems that, at least for the Han Chinese living there, the fear has given way to rage.
The Telegraph reports that nearly 10,000 people streamed down North Jifang road to try and hunt down local Uyghur Muslims, seeking revenge after hearing rumors that Uyghurs had broken into hospitals to kill patients - a little ironic considering yesterday's protest was in part thanks to Han Chinese taking out revenge beatings-turned-killings over rumors.
Of course, the rumors of Uyghur misdeeds was just one of the reasons for the insane and angry Han crowds. It seems that many Han on the ground there do believe the Uyghurs were the ones that turned violent. And that's at least somewhat true - even if they were provoked by police (a claim currently still in dispute), many rioters were specifically targeting Hans, which made up the majority of the victims.
As Melissa K. Chan of Al Jazeera tweeted earlier today, "There is no right or wrong anymore. Just vigilantes, Han and Uighur. Mostly men but some women and even children."
We have been following her and Malcolm Moore of the Telegraph relaying his colleague, Peter Forster - as well as several others (Austin Ramzy of Time Magazine, some foreigners living in Urumqi) - on Twitter. A compilation of their tweets after the jump for those of you who can't access the service in China.
AROUND 10AM TODAY
@melissakchan: Just to clarify: journalists can go off on our own. But, for example, riot police have surrounded hospitals. If you want to check injured-
@malcolmmoore: The openness of the govn't may also have something to do with the victims being mostly Han, rather than Uighur.
@malcolmmoore: Victims in Urumqi had severe head injuries and stab wounds. Very few bullet wounds
AROUND 11AM TODAY
@melissakchan: Uighur women with babies and children; hundreds protesting and asking for release of husbands.
@melissakchan:Shot police are moving in the protesters are shouting, "Let them free."
This incident, as reported by TIME:
Earlier in the day, the Chinese government efforts at media management backfired dramatically, as a large group of women besieged an official tour of visiting journalists to protest the arrests of their husbands, sons and brothers. Six buses full of foreign and Chinese reporters were taken to a neighborhood southeast of Urumqi's Grand Bazaar to see an auto dealership that was burned by rioters Sunday.As reporters interviewed residents of the area, a Uighur woman with two children stumbled past sobbing. The woman said she was bereft over the disappearance of her husband. Soon after, a dozen Uighur women emerged from a market, marching down a four-lane road and chanting slogans. The journalists and cameras followed, and soon the protesters — mostly women and children but some men as well — swelled to about 300 as Foreign Ministry minders stood aside, watching helplessly.
Several women said their family members had been detained in mass police arrests the previous day. "Free my husband! Free my husband!" a group of headscarf clad women cried. "He has heart disease," one woman said of her arrested husband. "He didn't go out yesterday or the day before, but still they took him." The women estimated that thousands of men had been arrested. They dumped out plastic bags that held more than 100 pairs of footwear and trousers, which they say police forced the detainees to take off when they were arrested. Urumqi Party Secretary Li Zhi had said earler at a press conference that more than 1,000 people had been arrested, but they were all taken while actively rioting.
@melissakchan: The last we saw it looked as if the protesters were dispersing but armed police had guns not by their side, but in hand.
From @davesgonechina (Urumqi resident): Received forwarded text msg apparently going around Urumqi last night. Message follows with translation: "在市里开大会通报昨晚的打砸抢烧杀暴力事件800多人受访146人被杀害400多辆车5万多平米房被砸烧。 请况很危险，请大家少出门注意安全而且听说三天内还会反弹！而且今天晚上会有大搜捕肯定会有反抗！一定要小心，发给你关心的人" Citywide bulletin: Last nights (Sunday) riots saw over 800 injured, 146 dead, 400 cars and over 50,000 sq. m. looted & burned. The situation is very dangerous, everyone please do not go outside & mind your safety, but word is things will return to normal in 3 days. Tonight (Monday night) will be a massive series of arrests and no doubt resistance. Be careful - a concerned individual."
AROUND 3PM
@mranti: More reports say, dissatisfied with the lack of protection from police, Han Chinese start to defend themselves against rioters.
@malcolmmoore: Police are containing several thousand Han Chinese protesters with tear gas and roadblocks.
From Sky News reporting on the situation:
Thousands of Han Chinese protesters have taken to the streets and smashed shops owned by Uighurs, China's less dominant ethnic group.Police in China's Urumqi city are repeatedly shooting tear gas to disperse the angry group who are armed with makeshift weapons.
But the demonstrators, some of whom carried meat cleavers, bricks, chains and bats, stayed put and washed the tear gas out of their eyes with water.
@malcolmmoore: Chinese crowd is waving red flags and chanting qian shou, hold your hands together
@malcolmmoore: There are now 10,000 armed Chinese protesters on the streets around People's Square, and growing.
@melissakchan: A few hundred Han Chinese with sticks and knives have come down the road singing the national anthem.
@malcolmmoore: Weapon count from Urumqi: snooker cue, axes, machetes, baseball bats, metal scaffolding poles, cattle prods, and a plastic mop handle.
@malcolmmoore: Police not trying to disarm mob, just trying to calm them down. Mood is turning from excitement to uncomfortable.
@melissakchan: I asked a Han Chinese girl if she was scared. Yes. But this is to defend my country she says with stick in hand.
@mranti: Urumqi Party chief Li Zhi comes, appeals the mass to leave. RT @hanyonghong: 联合早报长晓中传来消息，乌鲁木齐市委书记栗智到现场，呼吁群众离去，相信政府能够妥善处理问题。
@malcolmmoore: Halfway through the speech, the crowd roared with one voice, turned in the opposite direction and started running
@malcolmoore: No 2 People's Hospital was where the rumours of Uighurs breaking in and attacking patients started
@malcolmmoore: Hospital is surrounded by police line, firing tear gas at crowd
@malcolmmoore: Shit. Crowd now turning on Telegraph reporter and assistant. Anti-foreigner attack.
@austinramzy: Two police officers just escorted a Uighur woman with a baby in a stroller through a Han crowd with clubs by the People's theater
@melissakchan: A Han Chinese man with a stick just tore open our car door to beat our producer. Averted just in time.
@malcolmmoore: Phew. Peter Foster, Telegraph man in Urumqi, and his assistant are fine. Cops protected them.
@melissakchan: It is dangerous to film around Han Chinese if you have blonde hair and white skin. They get angry... Equally bad if you're a journalist who is Han-looking in Uighur neighborhoods. We all feel kind of stuck.
Martial law has now been imposed on the city. Internet access is cut off once again as a way to "prevent the riot from spreading." Meanwhile, somebody has been throwing molotov cocktails at the Chinese consulate in the Netherlands. Great, because what this situation needs is MORE violence.
Some pretty disturbing pictures of the incident from the Chinese media (for strong stomachs only).
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Thing interest me most is BBC, LA Time, Guardians and AP all call revenging Han Chinese “mobs” but lynching Uighur “protesters” who, though, killed over 150 Han on bloody Sunday.
They never learn from the lesson of calling terrorists “freedom fighters”. Maybe they would if they would experience being ethnic cleansed on Shanghai streets. Will Shanghainess one day do that to our immigrant expats who took away their job and poison their culture with Coke and Micky?
I can well imagine how much West media wish the deads in pictures were all Uighur stoned and knifed by Han Chinese:
http://cn.chinareviewnews.com/doc/1010/1/5/5/101015529_2.html?coluid=7&kindid=0&docid=101015529&mdate=0707155614
http://cn.chinareviewnews.com/doc/1010/1/5/5/101015529_7.html?coluid=7&kindid=0&docid=101015529&mdate=0707155614
Maybe they don't believe they are "terrorists".
And I would take a cue from Al Jazeera's Melissa Chan if I were you. This situation has progressed past the point of labeling any one group right or wrong. The fact that 10,000 Han were looking to take revenge on Uighurs (actually, yes, I would call that a mob action) who were looking to take revenge on Han for attacking their own in Shaoguan would tell you, if you were a rational thinker, that you have little moral ground to point the finger at one ethnic group.
I have no problem calling revenging Han CHinese "mobs" while you and your media which spoonfed you day-night refuse to call Uighur "mobs" on the ground they took revenge too for the 2 dead in a mass brawl, with over 156 innocent passers-by lynched in other city.
That's our difference which show our true colour.
yeah, and the CCP-run Riot Police were gassing the Hans and protecting the Uighurs.
TROLL!
TROLL!
Re: "...poison their culture with Coke and Micky..."
I'm picturing a 100-foot-tall Mickey Mouse terrorizing the streets of Shanghai, growling and crushing cars and knocking down buildings like the giant marshmallow man from Ghostbusters.
Everyone: please thank topgun for trying to bring a little laughter to an unpleasant story. It's hard to take him seriously, but he's always good for a laugh. He's like our little clown, isn't he folks? :-)
Is it important if I be called a clown when 156 innocents were killed at day time and when I can expose the azz of hypocracy of west media, and of yours?
At least I dont have double standard and call on sending all criminals to Guantanamo and waterboard them or bomb their Mosque and village, the Yankee way.
"Will Shanghainess one day do that to our immigrant expats who took away their job and poison their culture with Coke and Micky? "
This whole situation was started by some ex-factory worker posting racist (and untrue) accusations on the internet. And you think the solution is MORE racist accusations? Really, Einstein?
Well said, topgun. check this footage posted on a korean website, warning, disturbing images included, corpse of women and men lying around seems every corner, even there is no official report on the ethnicity of the death, but Urghurs will definitely leave their people's dead bodies on the street.
http://www.tagstory.com/video/video_post.aspx?media_id=V000338241
This is so barbaric! This is the 21rst century, dammit, what kind of civilisation is that supposed to be? A tragedy and a shame.
Pirx, don't say that. To bring them to the 21st century is like saying destroying and eroding their culture.
I went through those photos on the chinareviewnews.com. They are absolutely gruesome! While I have my deepest sympathy for those who died, I can't help to wonder why those bodies were not being covered. To show the wold they are dead is one thing, showing some respect to the dead is another.
Just toss the bodies into the back of a pickup truck (as in the recent drunk driver killing 5 case). We've learned that's the respect you can expect from the Gong An.
And "topgun", if you want to discuss poisoned culture, at least spell MickEy correctly, thanks.
OK, MICKEY, Thanks. But I spelled POISON correctly, right? You kinow I also know how to spell DEMONCRAZY,lol!
Why do trolls of your ilk ALWAYS have to end your own posts with "lol"??? Do you really think you're that funny?
I am quite impressed with your full capacity which just limits you to picking on other's spelling and, well, "lol".
Boy, honestly, like most of the esteemed and self-important VIP foreign immigrant workers whom nobody would grant a second glance at home, you are just not smart.
LOL
LAWLZ
LOLLIPOPZ!!
LAWLIPOPPZ!!1
ROFLCOPTERZ!!!!
XDDDDDDDDDDD
.....im that funny
btw it rlyy suxx this whole thing
BUT PLZZ STOPP BLOKKKIN FB/FLICKR/TWITTER!! AT LEAST UNBLOK THE ENGLISH VERSIONZ!!! THE PPLZ WHO USE THE ENGLISH VERSIONZ R OBVOIUSLY FOREIGNERZ!!! MOST CHINEZE PPLZ USE QQ AND NEVA EVEN HEARD OF FB/FLICKR/TWITTER/ETC...AND THE ONEZ THAT DO OBVIOUSLY USE THE CHINEZE VERSIONZ!!
DURFDURFDURF?!?!
I have no problem calling revenging Han CHinese "mobs" while you and your media which spoonfed you day-night refuse to call Uighur "mobs" on the ground they took revenge too for the 2 dead in a mass brawl, with over 156 innocent passers-by lynched in other city.
That's our difference which show our true colour.
Hmmm, seems the media I am seeing out here "in the West" have been calling both sides "rioters" and "mobs", and in fact if they weren't Muslim, I suspect some media would have indeed been more "diplomatic" about it but no, it seems many media are siding with the Chinese on this one...and given the press release posted by Kaiser Kuo earier at: http://jurl.it/Deg1?ref=mf it does seem a bit suspect. maybe some media may even have had some heads up on these events to follow and that maybe there was some sort of outside influence taking advantage of an under-informed populace (both Uighur and Han). Sad.
As these events have panned out, more even reporting is now happening as the events now being reported are anyalysed a bit more prior to release. We hope.
In fairness, Uighurs are an egregiously oppressed and colonized people.
If you simply look at the demographic shifts in Xinjiang since the commies took control, if you were a Uighur, I have no doubt you'd be fight-mad too.
Go to Xinjiang and you see the Chinese colonists own/control everything and their power is subsidized and encouraged by the state, of course. The schools and universities, the government, newspapers, language, religion, legal system, police, electricity, water, sewage, newspapers, military, radio, television, internet, roadways, natural resources, railways, airports...everything is controlled by ethnic Han and this is a deliberate, xenophobic policy of colonization and eradication.
For anyone who has spent significant time in China knows that Chinese are deeply racist people, and what's more, there is little or no social consciousness that tells people "racism is bad." Rather one gets the sense that Chinese feel only they can be the "victims" of oppression and racism.
--"if you were a Uighur, I have no doubt you'd be fight-mad too".
Thanks a lot for helping me know better why 17 Muslim hijackers "fought mad" to unplug your two front teeth.
There is NO meaningful relationship, similarity or analogy whatsoever between these riots and 9/11.
Any comparison is simply ignorance or an attempt to deliberately divert the discussion.
The Urumqi riots are a popular outpouring of anger against China's colonization of Xinjiang (aka East Turkestan) and the oppression and ethnic cleansing of the Uighur people.
BuckRogerz, maybe the Chinese government shud borrow from the US, Canada, and Australia, just get rid of the natives. LOL!!! Do you know why there are no aborigines in Tasmania? Because they were shot like wild animals by white farmers for challenging thier right to the land.
Chinese have such a bizarre, backwards conception of history and ethics.
There were an infinite number and variety of evils in the past, and certainly, no shortage of evils in China.
HOWEVER, no amount of historical rationalization justifies your position. If you use history as your guide, EVERY atrocity is justified. This kind of relativism of ethics is pre-modern at best, and a bit like a child who points his finger at others when he is caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
You really mark your class and the quality of your educational background when you make these kinds of arguments. None too impressive.
I'm sure the same amount of anger was directed towards the government and outpouring of sympathy towards blacks occurred during the LA riots or Watts? Some of the same arguments, right?
- MMalkin, feisty moonbat extraordinaire
Bucky, yes, we are backward. That's why Chinese lives don't count for shit. Yes I use history when I catch you folks talking nonsense. You folks have no moral highground vis a vis the Chinese. You blab about your values blah blah, committing the worst atrocities, wiping out native populations of 3 continents.
Buckrogerz, I was just kidding, us Chinese, either CCP or otherwise, will not stoop so low as to match what the colonials did in the new world. LOL!
I think I had a higher IQ than you when I was 6.
Unfortunately, it seems like it's fallen in the meantime.
Are you sure? Maybe it has fallen, but still 50 points ahead of you. LOL!
Excellent! Attack the PRC consulates around the world! Smite the CCPee and drive them into the woods!
Burn mutha fucka burn!
lambshaslik, you are beginning to sound like a jihadist.
I'll guarantee you a full recovery if you allow a traditioanl Chinese medical treatment which will help you totally forget the very Chinese boy in that Huaihai Rd. public toilet at that dark nite who spit into your.... well, trust me.
Shanghaiist ought to close comments section.
It's like it's the '90s, this is web 1.0 and I'm in troll paradise.
On a side note: people really need to make something creative out of their anger.
German news now report 800 dead and Han people running amok and executing people nonstop, while Uigurs are trying to hide from them and barricading their homes. Seems the massive amount of police doesn't help at all...
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fpolitik%2Fausland%2F0%2C1518%2C635078%2C00.html&sl=de&tl=en&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Jakob, German news are known to lie, they learn that from Hitler.
TROLL!
same thing here:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D99AF7UG0&show_article=1
The han-jobbers must be crushed! It's like the cultural revolution all over again.
Hey dude, Han men giving you the green hat to wear? LOL!
TROLL!