Riot season

With the coup in Honduras and the Twitter revolution in Iran, yesterday’s clashes in China were the last guest to the riot season party. And they came in with style -Chinese style. In Honduras, the numbers -non official- show two deaths. In Iran the numbers are around the two dozens. In China, are more than 150 and going up, plus hundreds of injured and detainees.

The origin of it is in an ethnic dispute between the Uighur Muslims, natives to the region, and the Han Chinese immigration. The latter has already overcome the first ones in the capital of the Western province of China, a natural cultural bridge between Central and Eastern Asia. Following the conflicts between the two groups, have inflamed the nationalist aspirations of the region.

This week’s episode was originated in a toy factory in the south of the country. A fired employee -who is now detained- started it by wide spreading a rumor about two Han Chinese women being raped by Uighur men. The rumor quickly got into a snowball and it ended in a fight between around 600 people from both sides, resulting in 2 deaths and 118 injured.

Outraged by it, the Uighur community called for a pacific demonstration that ended up in attacks against Han Chinese people. The clashes with the police were guaranteed. The scenes reminded to the ones lived before the Olympic Games or in Tibet. The final result is the worst ethnic revolts since the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1977.

The Chinese Government, experts on these fields and with Iran experience still fresh, quickly imposed a blackout in all the info on Internet about it. Censorship at home and blame abroad, Ahmadinejad’s style.

To be precise, Chinese government blames Rebiya Kadeer’s World Uighur Congress, an association created by the Uighur exilliated businesswoman in Germany, of being behind the violence in the streets. The Uighur exile, however, denies any implication and blames the Chinese for their repression during the past years.

I don’t know who started it, but anyhow, 156 casualties out of 3000 demonstrators are too many. Not even Ahmadinejad’s Basij militias matched those numbers.



Photo: CCTV


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