China admits that police killed 12 in Urumqi riots

CHINESE SECURITY officials have admitted that police officers killed 12 people during rioting in Urumqi, the first acknowledgment by the government that security forces opened fire in China’s worst violence since the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989.

The unrest began when a peaceful protest march against the death of two Uighurs in a factory in southern China turned violent after it was stopped by police.

This led to a rampage in the capital of Xinjiang, with Uighurs attacking Han Chinese, who make up China’s dominant ethnic group, burning cars and shops and smashing windows.

Two days later, vigilante groups of ethnic Han out for revenge took to the streets and attacked Uighurs.

Xinjiang governor Nur Bekri told the Xinhua news agency yesterday that police shot the “mobsters” on July 5th after first firing warning shots, but he did not say to which ethnic group the “gangsters” belonged.

Three of those shot died on the spot and nine died after treatment failed. Mr Bekri also said the death toll from the unrest had risen to 197.

The Beijing government has been remarkably open in allowing foreign and Chinese reporters to cover the Urumqi riots, setting up a press centre in a downtown hotel and giving the journalists internet access – elsewhere in the city no internet, international phone calls or mobile phone text messages are allowed.

Meanwhile, thousands of ethnic Uighurs rallied in the Kazakhstan city of Almaty to protest against China’s crackdown against Uighurs in Xinjiang. About 5,000 Uighurs gathered in a Soviet-era congress hall in the city.