China sacked the top official of the strife-torn city of Urumqi as well as the regional police chief today as the city crept back to uneasy calm after days of sometimes deadly protests that inflamed ethnic enmity.
The official Xinhua news agency did not explain why the city's Communist Party Secretary, Li Zhi, was replaced by Zhu Hailun, head of Xinjiang region's law-and-order committee.
But Li presided over the city during deadly unrest on July 5th when a protest by Muslim Uighurs, who call Xinjiang their homeland, gave way to deadly rioting that left 197 people dead, most of them members of China's majority Han ethnic group.
Urumqi has been put under heavy security again this week after three days of fresh unrest, as thousands of Han Chinese residents protested over a rash of reported syringe stabbings they blamed on Uighurs, a distinct minority in the city.
Officials said five people died in protests on Thursday. Xinjiang police chief Liu Yaohua was replaced by Zhu Changjie, party chief of Xinjiang's Aksu Prefecture.
The sackings could feed more speculation about the future of Wang Lequan, the regional Communist Party boss, who has barely appeared in state media in the past couple of days, after he pleaded from a balcony with Han crowds demanding his ouster.
The dismissals came as Urumqi returned to something like calm, topping a week that has seen crowds of Han Chinese protesters turn against the region's top Communist officials.
Troops used tear gas to break up a group of people, apparently Han Chinese, gathered near city government offices in Urumqi on Saturday, footage from Cable TV of Hong Kong showed.
Reuters