China Lifts Xinjiang Internet Ban at Last

Image by dreamX via Flickr

After a 10-Month Ban, Western China Is Back Online - NYTimes.com

By EDWARD WONG

BEIJING — Full Internet service was restored to the vast western Chinese region of Xinjiang on Friday, 10 months after it was blocked following deadly ethnic rioting that convulsed the regional capital, Urumqi. The blockage was the longest and most widespread in China since the Internet became readily available throughout the country a decade ago.

The announcement was made in the morning, and many residents in cities across Xinjiang took the day off from school or work to rush to Internet cafes, where they pored through months of unread e-mail messages or chatted via instant messaging. Some also dived back into online gaming, one of China’s most popular pastimes (“World of Warcraft” imitators being the most played).

In the violence in Urumqi on July 5, 2009, ethnic Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking people that is the largest ethnic group in Xinjiang, rampaged through the streets after security forces tried to break up a protest over social injustices. The government says at least 197 people were killed and 1,600 injured, most of them ethnic Han, the majority in China. Many Uighurs resent discrimination by the Han, who are migrating in large numbers to Xinjiang and hold the top positions of power.

The Chinese government blamed overseas Uighur groups for using the Internet to stir up hostilities, and in particular they pointed at Rebiya Kadeer, a Uighur exile living in the Washington area. Ms. Kadeer has denied the accusations. After the initial rioting, the government cut off Internet service and cellphone text messaging across Xinjiang, which makes up one-sixth of China’s territory.

On Friday, the regional government Web site carried a brief statement on the restoration of service: “For the stability, economic development and the needs of people from all ethnic backgrounds of the autonomous region, the Communist Party and the government of Xinjiang decided to fully resume Internet services beginning May 14.”

The restoration of Internet service comes before a major central government meeting this month that is aimed at setting new policy in Xinjiang. In late April, the government announced it was replacing the most powerful official in Xinjiang, Wang Lequan, who had been regional party secretary for 15 years. A hard-liner on ethnic issues, he has been widely blamed by Uighurs and Han for creating a poisonous atmosphere.

Mr. Wang’s replacement, Zhang Chunxian, party secretary of Hunan Province, is nicknamed the “Internet secretary” for his use of online tools to communicate with people.

One travel agent in Kashgar, an ancient Silk Road oasis town, said he came into his office Friday morning to find all his co-workers on Yahoo.

“Yes, I am excited, but I have already forgotten all my passwords,” the travel agent, Kasim, said in a telephone interview.

He said he knew people who had moved out of Kashgar — even as far away as Guangdong Province in southeastern China — to ensure they had Internet access. This was especially true of those who needed to use e-mail for their jobs or businesses, Kasim said.

“I’m happy to know that I can recover my old friends, I can finally write to all my friends,” he said.

Late last year, the Xinjiang government slightly relaxed the ban on the Internet, first allowing access to some propaganda-heavy news sites created for the region’s residents. After that, some Chinese e-mail services were reopened. Last month, the government began allowing limited text messaging.

The Internet in Xinjiang, however, is still subject to China’s complicated censorship apparatus, nicknamed the Great Firewall, which blocks social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, as well as a vast number of Web pages devoted to delicate subjects (the Dalai Lama, Falun Gong or the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre).

The Chinese government has taken a hard line against Internet freedom in the last year. This spring, Beijing created a new department, Bureau Nine, to help police social networking sites and other user-driven forums.

Xiyun Yang contributed reporting.

Related articles by Zemanta

• China: Internet Fully Restored in Xinjiang (time.com)
• China's Xinjiang to get $1.5 billion boost (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Leader of China's Xinjiang Region Is Replaced (nytimes.com)
• China police boss says Xinjiang getting better (sfgate.com)

"We Are Afraid to Even Look for Them" - Human Rights Watch

Image via Wikipedia

"We Are Afraid to Even Look for Them"

Enforced Disappearances in the Wake of Xinjiang’s Protests

October 20, 2009

Read the Report
ISBN: 1-56432-556-3

Get the Report

• Download report (PDF, 620.04 KB)
• Download report with cover (PDF, 891.55 KB)
• Download summary and recommendations in CHINESE (PDF, 289.99 KB)
• 
  

Table of Contents

• “We Are Afraid to Even Look for Them”
• Map of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region
• Map of Urumqi
• Summary
• Methodology
• I. Background
• II. Official Data on Arrests and Due Process Concerns
• III. Enforced Disappearances and Unlawful Arrests
• IV. Legal Standards
• V. Recommendations
• VI. Acknowledgments
• VII. Appendix

China: Detainees ‘Disappeared’ After Xinjiang Protests - Human Rights Watch

Image by sheilaz413 via Flickr

Chinese Government Should Account for Every Detainee

October 20, 2009

(New York) - The Chinese government should immediately account for all detainees in its custody and allow independent investigations into the July 2009 protests in Urumqi and their aftermath, Human Rights Watch said in a new report on enforced "disappearances" released today.

The 44-page report, "‘We Are Afraid to Even Look for Them': Enforced Disappearances in the Wake of Xinjiang's Protests," documents the enforced disappearances of 43 Uighur men and teenage boys who were detained by Chinese security forces in the wake of the protests.

"The cases we documented are likely just the tip of the iceberg," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "The Chinese government says it respects the rule of law, but nothing could undermine this claim more than taking people from their homes or off the street and ‘disappearing' them - leaving their families unsure whether they are dead or alive."

Last week, Xinjiang judicial authorities started trials of people accused of involvement in the protests. Nine men have already been sentenced to death, three others to death with a two-year reprieve, and one to life imprisonment.

Human Rights Watch research has established that on July 6-7, 2009, Chinese police, the People's Armed Police, and the military conducted numerous large-scale sweep operations in two predominantly Uighur areas of Urumqi, Erdaoqiao, and Saimachang. On a smaller scale, these operations and targeted raids continued at least through mid-August.

The victims of "disappearances" documented by Human Rights Watch were young Uighur men. Most were in their 20s, although the youngest reported victims were 12 and 14 years old. It is possible that some Han Chinese also became victims of "disappearances" and unlawful arrests. However, none of the more than two dozen Han Chinese residents of Urumqi interviewed by Human Rights Watch provided any information about such cases.

According to witnesses, the security forces sealed off entire neighborhoods, searching for young Uighur men. In some cases, they first separated the men from other residents, pushed them to their knees or flat on the ground, and, at least in some cases, beat the men while questioning them about their participation in the protests. Those who had wounds or bruises on their bodies, or had not been at their homes during the protests, were then taken away. In other cases, the security forces simply went after every young man they could catch and packed them into their trucks by the dozens.

Twenty-five-year-old Makhmud M. [name changed] and another 16 men "disappeared" as a result of one of these raids in the Saimachang area of Urumqi. His wife and another witness told Human Rights Watch that at around 7 p.m. on July 6 a group of some 150 uniformed police and military sealed off the main street in their neighborhood:

They told everybody to get out of the houses. Women and elderly were told to stand aside, and all men, 12 to 45 years old, were all lined up against the wall. Some men were pushed on their knees, with hands tied around wooden sticks behind their backs; others were forced on the ground with hands on their heads. The soldiers pulled the men's T-shirts or shirts over their heads so that they couldn't see.

Police and the military were examining the men to see if they had any bruises or wounds. They also asked where they had been on July 5 and 6. They beat the men randomly, even the older ones - our 70-year-old neighbor was punched and kicked several times. We couldn't do anything to stop it - they weren't listening to us."

In this and other cases documented by Human Rights Watch, the families' attempts to inquire about their relatives proved futile. Police and other law enforcement agencies denied having knowledge of the arrests, or simply chased the families away.

Human Rights Watch called on the Chinese government to immediately stop the practice of enforced disappearances, release those against whom no charges have been brought, and account for every person held in detention. Human Rights Watch urged the Chinese government to allow for an independent, international investigation into the Urumqi unrest and its aftermath and called on the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to take the lead in such an investigation.

"China should only use official places of detention, so that everyone being held can contact family members and legal counsel," said Adams. "‘Disappearing' people is not the behavior of countries aspiring to global leadership."

The protests of July 5-7, 2009, in Xinjiang's capital of Urumqi were one of the worst episodes of ethnic violence in China in decades. The protests appear to have been sparked by an attack on Uighurs in the southeast part of the country, which became a rallying cry for Uighurs angry over longstanding discriminatory policies toward the Uighur minority. The initially peaceful Uighur demonstration quickly turned into a violent attack against Han Chinese, leaving scores dead or injured.

Instead of launching an impartial investigation into the incidents in accordance with international and domestic standards, Chinese law enforcement agencies carried out a massive campaign of unlawful arrests in the Uighur areas of Urumqi. Official figures suggest that the number of people detained by the security forces in connection with the protests has reached well over a thousand people.

Under international law, a state commits an enforced disappearance when its agents take a person into custody and it denies holding the person or fails to disclose the person's whereabouts. "Disappeared" persons are often at high risk of torture or extrajudicial execution. Family members and friends experience ongoing anxiety and suffering, as they do not know what has happened to the person.

"The United States, the European Union, and China's other international partners should demand clear answers about what happened to those who have disappeared in Xinjiang," said Adams. "They should not let trade relations or other political considerations lead them to treat China differently than other countries which carry out this horrific practice."

Also available in:

• 中文
• 日本語
• Deutsch

China Court Sentences 6 to Death in Rioting - NYTimes.com

Image via Wikipedia

By EDWARD WONG

BEIJING — A Chinese court sentenced six men to death and a seventh to life in prison on Monday for their roles in the deadly ethnic rioting that convulsed the western regional capital of Urumqi in July, according to Xinhua, the state news agency.

All seven had names that suggested they were Uighurs, the largest ethnic group in the vast region of Xinjiang. All were convicted of murder, and some were also found guilty of arson and robbery, Xinhua reported.

The sentences were the first to be handed down by a court in response to the rioting of July 5, in which enraged Uighurs went on a rampage against Han, the dominant ethnic group in China, in the streets of Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang. At least 197 people were killed, most of them Han civilians, and 1,600 injured, the government announced. The ethnic rioting was the worst in decades in China and prompted cycles of retaliation as well as protests against the regional government.

Uighurs in Xinjiang have long complained of discrimination against them and of mass migrations to Xinjiang by the Han that have changed society in parts of the region they once dominated.

The six sentenced to death by the Intermediate People’s Court in Urumqi were Abdukerim Abduwayit, Gheni Yusup, Abdulla Mettohti, Adil Rozi, Nureli Wuxiu’er and Alim Metyusup, according to Xinhua. The seventh, Tayirejan Abulimit, was given a life sentence because he had confessed to murder and robbery and helped in the arrest of Alim Metyusup, Xinhua reported.

The English-language version of the Xinhua report did not provide details of the crimes. However, the Chinese-language version said that Abdukerim Abduwayit killed five people by stabbing them or beating them with an iron pipe, and that he helped set fire to buildings that forced 13 people to jump from their windows. Most of the men were convicted of similar crimes, according to the Xinhua report.

The trial on Monday was held without any prior announcement. In late August, China Daily, an official English-language newspaper, reported that trials would start that week, but regional authorities quickly said after the article appeared that a trial date had not been set.

The sentences in Urumqi were handed down just two days after two courts in southern China sentenced 11 people for their roles in the ethnic melee at a toy factory that served as a spark of the Xinjiang rioting. Xiao Jianhua, a Han man identified by a court as the “principal instigator” of that brawl, received a death sentence, another man received life in prison and nine others were given shorter prison terms.

Zhang Jing contributed research.

Law Bans 'Separatist' Talk - RFA

Authorities pass a law that bans the discussion of separatism in a northwestern China divided by ethnic tensions.

AFP

Chinese paramilitary police trucks drive through downtown Urumqi, July 9, 2009.

HONG KONG—Authorities in China's northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) have passed a law making it a criminal offense to discuss separatism on the Internet following months of ethnic strife.

Xinjiang's People's Congress Standing Committee passed the "Information Promotion Bill" last week banning people in the region from using the Internet in any way that undermines national unity, incites ethnic separatism or harms social stability.

Armed police now stand guard in public places around the XUAR and are detaining anyone found with footage of ethnic riots that erupted in the regional capital Urumqi last July.

Meanwhile, local residents and officials said Urumqi was tense and fearful following a series of stabbings in public places with hypodermic syringes in early September.

"Ever since the needle stabbing incidents ... there have been armed police on the buses, especially at night, checking people's bags," a resident surnamed Zhou said.

"Now, whenever we ride the bus or go to the supermarket or other public places, they check everyone's bags. This is done out of desperation."

Hunt for evidence

A government official in Urumqi said that the hunt was on to collect evidence related to the recent ethnic violence, which began July 5 after police suppressed a peaceful demonstration of Uyghurs and has left 197 mostly Han Chinese residents dead, according to official media.

"The public security bureau started trying to collect evidence, pulling stones and rocks out of the rubble, trying to find traces of blood," the government official said.

"But there wasn't enough evidence left behind. It had all been cleared away to make the streets clean again. It looked as if nothing had happened, but in fact, the evidence was all gone."

Meanwhile, Urumqi authorities were stepping up controls to ensure that no photos or footage of the July violence was leaked to the outside world.

"They are preventing people from leaving Xinjiang with any photos or video footage of the July 5 incident," an informed source in the city said.

"If they catch anyone trying to do that, they'll be detained."

Discussion blocked

Sichuan-based Internet engineer Pu Fei said a number of cell phone users in Xinjiang had received garbled SMS messages in recent weeks, possibly resulting from their use of "forbidden" words on the list used by government communications filters.

Communications networks in the troubled region have been closed several times in the wake of the July 5 ethnic violence in Urumqi, and any online discussion of the tensions resulted in blockages and closures of Internet and cell phone networks.

"It's very rare to see such a starkly worded piece of legislation," Pu said. "Until now, the regulations have just reminded everyone to avoid certain topics. Now it's been made into law. I think this shows a pessimistic outlook for freedom of speech in this country."

"It seems as if [what happened in] Xinjiang has had a bad effect on everything."

Munich-based World Uyghur Congress spokesman Dilxat Rashit said the legislation should be applied, if at all, to the whole of China, not just to Xinjiang, as people all over the country are discussing the ethnic strife.

"Now, the Uyghurs, who have already been denied their freedom of expression by the Chinese government, are being prevented from expressing themselves either inside China or overseas," he said.

Legal experts said the new legislation was based on rather vague definitions of "subversion."

"The principle behind this piece of legislation is in accordance with China's national security legislation, but it lacks a detailed explanation about what exactly subverting the state means, and what incitement to violence actually consists of," said professor Wang Youjin, of the Chinese University of Political Science and Law.

"There are very few detailed provisions in the National Security Law, and this is causing difficulties."

Communications severed

Residents of Urumqi have frequently reported being cut off from the outside world entirely, as the authorities block media and social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Officials say terrorists, separatists, and religious extremists used the Internet, telephones and mobile text messages to spread rumors and hatred during the ethnic violence, sparking one of the most comprehensive Internet shutdowns ever reported.

Some footage of the riots has managed to appear on video-sharing sites like YouTube in spite of the clampdown, mostly posted by exiled Uyghurs outside of China.

Urumqi resident Zhou said he was having trouble keeping in touch with his two grown children studying at overseas universities.

"Our eldest daughter is studying at a university overseas. We can't make international phone calls ... and we can't reach her online, either...Basically we have totally lost touch with them," he said.

"We rely on friends in Beijing and other places to relay messages. Complaining about it makes no difference. Who is stronger, the individual or the government?"

"There's nothing we ordinary people can do except sit and wait. What choice do we have? We aren't an armed, military organization."

Original reporting in Cantonese by Hai Lan, and in Mandarin by Qiao Long. Cantonese service director: Shiny Li. Mandarin service director: Jennifer Chou. Translated and written for the Web in English by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.

BBC - Leaders axed after China rioting

Image by Remko Tanis via Flickr

A Communist Party leader and police chief in the troubled western Chinese region of Xinjiang have been sacked, the official Xinhua news agency says.

The moves follow days of ethnic unrest in the regional capital Urumqi in which at least five people have died.

No official reason has been given for the sackings.

Mass protests have followed a spate of stabbings with syringes blamed on Uighur Muslim separatists. Unrest in Urumqi in July left nearly 200 dead.

ANALYSIS
Michael Bristow, BBC News, Urumqi It is not entirely unusual for a communist party boss to be sacked in China following an accident, scandal or some kind of crisis. It is one of only a few ways the authorities can show ordinary people that they've taken their feelings into consideration.

But few officials have been sacked quite as publicly as Li Zhi, Urumqi's former party chief. The fact that he has been forced out while this current phase of unrest has yet to subside, reveals just how serious the situation is here.

It also shows how desperate the country's national leaders are to persuade Urumqi's Han Chinese population to calm down. But this sacking might not appease them: the protesters had called for Mr Li to step down, but many also want to see the back of Xinjiang's party boss, Wang Lequan.

Xinhua first announced that Urumqi Communist Party chief Li Zhi was to be replaced by Zhu Hailun, the head of Xinjiang region's law-and-order committee.

A later statement added that Liu Yaohua, director of the Xinjiang Autonomous Regional Public Security Department, had also been dismissed.

Correspondents say that protesters who have marched in their thousands through Urumqi in recent days have demanded Mr Li's dismissal for failing to provide public safety.

The BBC's Michael Bristow in Urumqi says the sacking is unusual as it shows the Chinese authorities believe they may have made mistakes in the handling of the unrest.

Tight security

Security in Urumqi has been tight this week, after thousands of Han Chinese demonstrated over the alleged hypodermic syringe stabbings.

In fresh unrest on Saturday, angry Han Chinese rushed to the city's main square following reports that three Uighur men had attacked a child with needles.

Video of the incident showed police driving the boy away and the crowd being dispersed.

China's top security official, Meng Jianzhu, arrived in the city on Friday to try to restore order.

He was quoted by Xinhua as saying the syringe attacks were a continuation of the July unrest in which 200 people - mostly Han Chinese - were killed in ethnic riots.

Xinjiang's population is evenly split between Uighurs and Han Chinese - the country's majority ethnic group. But Hans make up three-quarters of Urumqi's population.

Tension between the Uighur and Han communities has been simmering for many years, but July's ethnic unrest was the worst for decades.

It began when crowds of Uighurs took the streets to protest about mistreatment - but their rally spiralled out of control and days of violent clashes followed.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Police impose calm on China city (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Xinjiang protests: Five dead in Urumqi after syringe security clashes (telegraph.co.uk)
• China TV reports 476 people stabbed with syringes (ctv.ca)
• Han Protesters Paralyze Capital of Xinjiang (nytimes.com)
• China Dismisses Party Boss of Strife-Hit Western City (nytimes.com)

Chinese Leader Visits Volatile Xinjiang Region

By EDWARD WONG and JONATHAN ANSFIELD

BEIJING — President Hu Jintao has been visiting the volatile western region of Xinjiang for four days, state news media reported Tuesday, in his first trip to the region since deadly rioting in July left scores of people dead and strained relations between ethnic Han and ethnic Uighurs.

According to Xinhua, the state news agency, Mr. Hu visited rural areas and factories; a major oil center; and the regional capital, Urumqi, where the rioting occurred.

On Tuesday, he told government officials and security forces that stability was a top priority in the region. “The key to our work in Xinjiang is to properly handle the relation between development and stability in the region,” Xinhua quoted him as saying.

Reporters gathered in Xinjiang this week in anticipation of the start of trials related to the riots. But an official with the news media office of the local Communist Party headquarters said that he had no information that any such trials would take place this week.

The official, Li Hua, said Tuesday by telephone that a report on Monday in China Daily, a state-run English-language newspaper, had incorrect information on the timeline for the trials. Some Chinese Web sites and foreign news organizations, including The New York Times, ran articles based on the China Daily report.

“Of course they have to be tried, just not according to the timeline of the China Daily story,” Mr. Li said, referring to the scores of men, mostly ethnic Uighurs, charged with taking part in the riots. Mr. Li said he had no information on exactly when the trials would start.

The China Daily article, published on the front page, said that more than 200 suspects had been formally charged with an array of crimes related to the rioting that began on July 5, and that trials were expected to start this week in Urumqi. The article cited an unnamed court official.

It also said the local police had gathered 3,318 pieces of evidence, including bricks and clubs stained with blood.

Some Chinese and foreign reporters have waited in Urumqi for the trials to start. In late July, China Daily had reported that the trials would start in August.

On Tuesday, Global Times, a newspaper published by the Communist Party’s main news organization, reported that the government had not yet set a date for the trial and that the number of suspects remained at 83. Global Times quoted Hou Hanmin, a spokeswoman for the Xinjiang regional government, saying that the China Daily report was “totally untrue.”

The announcement of a trial date on a matter as delicate as the ethnic riots would usually be reported first through Xinhua. But Xinhua had yet to report on any fixed date as of late Tuesday.

The conflicting reports appeared to be an indication of growing competition among official news organizations in China as senior officials encourage more aggressive reporting on topics of international interest.

On July 5, mobs of Uighurs, Turkic-speaking people who make up the largest ethnic group in Xinjiang, stormed through the streets of Urumqi after clashes between Uighur protesters and riot police officers. The initial protesters had been holding a rally over the killing of Uighurs in an earlier ethnic brawl at a factory in southeastern China.

In the violence in Urumqi, at least 197 people were killed and 1,721 injured, most of them Han civilians, according to state news organizations. It was the deadliest ethnic riot in China in decades. The Han are the dominant ethnic group in China.

In the days afterward, Han vigilantes armed with sticks and knives went into Uighur neighborhoods to exact revenge.

Uighurs in Urumqi say the government has not given an accurate count of Uighur casualties.

Xiyun Yang contributed reporting from Beijing.

Migrants to China’s West Bask in Prosperity

By ANDREW JACOBS

SHIHEZI, China — They marched through the streets of Beijing, Shanghai and countless small towns propelled by patriotic cheers and thumping drums. It was 1956, and Mao Zedong was calling on China’s youth to “open up the west,” the vast borderland known as Xinjiang that for centuries had defied subjugation.

After a monthlong journey by train and open-air truck, thousands arrived at this Gobi Desert army outpost to find that the factory jobs, hot baths and telephones in every house were nothing but empty promises to lure them to a faraway land.

“We lived in holes in the ground, and all we did night and day was hard labor,” recalled Han Zuxue, a sun-creased 72-year-old who was a teenager when he left his home in eastern Henan Province. “At first we cried every day but over time we forgot our sadness.”

More than five decades of toil later, men and women like Mr. Han have helped transform Shihezi into a tree-shaded, bustling oasis whose canned tomatoes, fiery grain alcohol and enormous cotton yields are famous throughout China.

This city of 650,000 is a showcase of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, a uniquely Chinese conglomerate of farms and factories that were created by decommissioned Red Army soldiers at the end of the civil war.

“Put your weapons aside and pick up the tools of construction,” one popular slogan went. “Develop Xinjiang, defend the nation’s borders and protect social stability.”

With a total population of 2.6 million, 95 percent of it ethnic Han Chinese, Shihezi and a string of other settlements created by the military are stable strongholds in a region whose majority non-Han populace has often been unhappy under Beijing’s rule. Last month, that discontent showed itself during vicious ethnic rioting that claimed 197 lives in Urumqi, the regional capital, which is a two-hour drive away.

The government says that most of the dead were Han Chinese bludgeoned by mobs of Uighurs, Muslims of Turkish ancestry whose presence in Xinjiang has been steadily diluted by migration from China’s densely populated east.

“Ever since we arrived they’ve resented us and had no appreciation for how we’ve improved this place,” said He Zhenjie, 76, who has spent his adult life leveling sand dunes, planting trees and digging irrigation ditches. “But we’re here to stay. The Uighurs will never wrest Xinjiang away.”

Even if many Uighurs view the settlers as nothing more than Chinese colonists, many Chinese consider the bingtuan, meaning soldier corps, a major success. In one fell swoop Mao deployed 200,000 idle soldiers to help develop and occupy a resource-rich, politically strategic region bordering India, Mongolia and the Soviet Union, a onetime ally turned menace.

Shihezi and other bingtuan settlements quickly became self-sufficient, a relief to a government lacking resources, and its “reclamation warriors” worked without pay those first few years, steadily turning thousands of acres of inhospitable scrubland into some of the country’s most fertile terrain.

With an annual output of goods and services of $7 billion, the settlements run by the bingtuan include five cities, 180 farming communities and 1,000 companies. They also report directly to Beijing and run their own courts, colleges and newspapers.

“During peaceful times, they are a force for development, but if anything urgent happens, they will step out and maintain social stability and combat the separatists,” said Li Sheng, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a former bingtuan member who writes about the region’s history.

In those early years, the ranks of the bingtuan were fortified by petty criminals, former prisoners of war, prostitutes and intellectuals, all sent west for “re-education.” During the mid-1950s, 40,000 young women were lured to Xinjiang with promises of the good life: they arrived to discover their main purpose was to relieve the loneliness of the male pioneers and cement the region’s Han presence through their progeny.

Demographics have always been a tactical element of the campaign to pacify the region. In 1949, when the Communists declared the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, there were just 300,000 Han Chinese in Xinjiang. Today, the number of Han has grown to 7.5 million, just over 40 percent of the region’s population. The percentage of Uighurs has fallen to 45 percent, or about 8.3 million.

Their grievances have multiplied even as Xinjiang has grown more prosperous, thanks in part to its huge reserves of natural gas, oil and minerals. Many Uighurs complain about the repression of their Islamic faith, official policies that marginalize their language and a lack of job opportunities, especially at government bureaus and inside the bingtuan.

During a recent visit to Shihezi, armed paramilitary policemen stopped every car and bus entering the city. But only Uighurs were made to step out of vehicles for identification checks and searches.

Neatly laid out on a grid, its sidewalks graced by apple trees and elms, the city is populated by the sturdy and defiantly proud who think of Xinjiang as China’s version of Manifest Destiny, the doctrine undergirding the westward expansion of the United States in the 19th century. But just beneath the self-satisfaction runs a deep vein of bitterness, especially among those who arrived in the 1950s and 1960s.

“I thought I was going to be a nurse, but I ended up sweeping the streets and cleaning toilets,” said Yue Caiying, who moved here in 1963, and, like many of those with an education, was forced to set aside personal ambition.

Lu Yiping, an author who spent five years interviewing women trucked into Xinjiang from Hunan Province, tells of girls lured with promises of Russian-language classes and textile-mill jobs. In an interview published online, he told the story of arriving women greeted by Wang Zhen, the famously hard-line general who helped tame the region. “Comrades, you must prepare to bury your bones in Xinjiang,” he quoted Mr. Wang as telling the women.

Still, for many early settlers, Xinjiang offered an escape from the deprivation that stalked many rural areas between 1959 and 1962, when Mao’s disastrous attempt to start up China’s industrialization led to famine that killed millions.

Early settlers like Ma Xianwu, who arrived here in 1951 and helped dig the first thatch-covered pits that served as shelter, offer a typical mix of conflicted emotions. He expressed wonder at the city he had helped create, but also sorrow over the hardship he and others had endured.

“People would lose ears and toes to frostbite,” said Mr. Ma, who is 94 and nearly toothless.

But any sense of bitterness has faded. “We were serving the motherland,” he said, waving off the adulation of a visitor. “The glory belongs to the party. I’m just one drop of water in the ocean.”

China’s Tally of 718 Arrests in July Riots Is Questioned

By MICHAEL WINES

BEIJING — Chinese authorities said Tuesday that they had taken 718 people into custody in connection with last month’s ethnic riots in the western region of Xinjiang, but an official with an ethnic Uighur exile group said the true number was far higher.

The new report, released by the state-run Xinhua news agency, left it unclear whether the 718 detainees represented the total of suspects captured since the July 5 unrest, or were in addition to previous arrests and detentions. The government had previously said that more than 1,500 people had been detained after the riots.

Nor was it clear how many of the suspects had been charged with crimes. State radio, quoted by Reuters, reported on Tuesday that 83 suspects had been accused of crimes ranging from murder and arson to assault and disturbing the peace.

The Xinjiang riots in the regional capital, Urumqi, killed at least 197 people — most of them ethnic Han Chinese, officials said — and injured about 1,100 others. The violence broke out after Uighur residents, the area’s original settlers, marched to protest the treatment of Uighur factory workers involved in a disturbance in eastern China.

The resulting unrest was the worst ethnic violence in China in at least a decade. Tuesday’s Xinhua report, a summary of progress in the official inquiry into the riots, quoted the head of Urumqi’s Public Security Bureau, Cehn Zhuangwei, as saying that 718 “criminals who disturbed the peace” had been detained. Investigators were pursuing nearly 600 important leads, he said, and were examining hundreds of photographs and video clips, as well as DNA samples in an effort to track down those involved in the violence.

In Washington, Omar Kanat, the vice president of the World Uighur Congress, an exile group, said that the Chinese reports of detainees were understated, and that the new report of 718 detentions could only add to previously reported totals.

“Many people are calling us every day, and they say the number of arrests exceeds five, six thousand,” he said in a telephone interview. “We cannot confirm that. But we know that the numbers of arrests are much more than the Chinese figures.”

Most of the detained people are of Uighur descent, he said, adding that Uighurs in Xinjiang have told the organization in recent days about a wave of new detentions in Urumqi and surrounding areas.

China to Try Suspects Held After Riots

By ANDREW JACOBS

BEIJING — China will begin trials in the next few weeks for suspects it accuses of playing a role in the deadly riots that shook the capital of the Xinjiang region in early July, state media outlets reported Friday.

The English-language China Daily newspaper said officials were organizing special tribunals to weigh the fate of “a small number” of the 1,400 people who have been detained, most of them Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority whom security forces have blamed for much of the killing.

Earlier this week, the authorities arrested an additional 253 suspects, many through tips provided by residents of Urumqi, the regional capital where the violence took place. On Thursday, the authorities published the photographs of an additional 15 people, all but one of them Uighur, who they say had a hand in the unrest. Those who provide information leading to an arrest can collect as much as $7,350 in reward money.

“The police urged the suspects to turn themselves in,” China Daily wrote, quoting an unidentified law enforcement official. “Those who do so within 10 days will be dealt with leniently, while others will be punished severely.”

In the days after the riots, the head of the Communist Party in Xinjiang was blunt about what awaits those convicted of the most serious offenses. “To those who have committed crimes with cruel means, we will execute them,” said the official, Li Zhi.

The riots, the worst outbreak of ethnic strife in China’s recent history, began July 5 after protests over the deaths of Uighur factory workers in another part of China turned into a murderous rampage. The violence, which lasted three days, claimed 197 lives, most of them Han Chinese beaten to death on the streets, according to the government. The Han are the dominant ethnic group in China.

Uighur advocates overseas, however, insist that the official death toll undercounts the number of Uighurs killed by the paramilitary police and during revenge attacks by the Han that followed the initial rioting.

China has accused outsiders of instigating the unrest, heaping most of the blame on Rebiya Kadeer, the 62-year-old leader of the World Uighur Congress, which advocates self-determination for China’s Uighurs. They say Ms. Kadeer, a businesswoman who spent years in a Chinese jail before going into exile, organized the killings from her home in Washington.

In recent weeks Ms. Kadeer has been on an aggressive campaign to convince the world that her people are the primary victims of the rioting. During a visit to Japan on Wednesday, she told reporters that 10,000 people had disappeared overnight in the days following the unrest. “Where did they go?” she asked. “Were they all killed or sent somewhere? The Chinese government should disclose what happened to them.”

Her claims have infuriated China, with one official in Xinjiang describing her remarks as “completely fabricated.” Ms. Kadeer says she cannot reveal the source of her information because to do so would endanger those who provided it.

If the trials that followed the 2008 riots in Tibet are any guide, the court hearings in Xinjiang will be swift. According to China Daily, the accused will be appointed lawyers who have “received special training,” as have the judges who will preside over the cases. Each trial will be heard by a panel of three or seven judges, and the majority opinion will prevail.

Human rights groups, however, say they have little confidence the tribunals will be fair. They expect the proceedings to be closed to the public, as are most trials in China, and they note that the defendants will not have lawyers of their own choosing.

“Without independent legal counsel, you don’t have any clue as to what evidence has been collected and through what means,” said Renee Xia, international director of Chinese Human Rights Defenders, which is based in Hong Kong. “Were they tortured or coerced to confess? Trials can be speedy, but it doesn’t mean they will be fair.”

Activist Says Thousands Missing in China's Uighur Province

By Akiko Fujita Tokyo 29 July 2009

Fujita report - Download (MP3)
Fujita report - Listen (MP3)

Rebiya Kadeer, head of pro-independence World Uighur Congress, speaks during press conference at Japan National Press Club in Tokyo, 29 Jul 2009

The exiled leader of China's Uighur minority group has sharply criticized the Chinese government and called for an independent investigation into recent unrest in Xinjiang. Rebiya Kadeer is in Tokyo to seek support for the mainly Muslim community.

Rebiya Kadeer described a scene of chaos and bloodshed on the night of July 5 - clashes with police and a barrage of gunshots throughout Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang.

The head of the World Uighur Congress told Japanese journalists Wednesday that Chinese officials watched it all unfold and never stepped in to calm tensions.

She says that China claims 190 people died that day but she does not believe that. She says 10,000 people vanished overnight. "If they were killed where are the bodies? If they were taken away, where are they now?" she asked.

The violence began July 5 as Uighurs protested the way police had handled attacks on a Uighur workers in southeastern China.

A few days later, members of China's dominant Han ethnic group rampaged through Uighur neighborhoods in retaliation.

Since the fifth, Kadeer says Chinese police have gone door to door to seek out and detain Uighur men without cause. She worries about how much longer that will continue. She is visiting Japan to draw attention to that problem and seek help from the government.

She asks the Japanese government to begin its own investigation into the riots and search for the 10,000 missing. She also asked government leaders to pressure the United Nations to conduct an independent investigation.

China accuses Kadeer, who now lives in the United States, of masterminding the unrest. The Beijing government criticized Japan for allowing the exiled leader to visit, calling her a "criminal." Kadeer denies any involvement in the clashes and says the tension can only be resolved by direct talks between Beijing and Uighur leaders.

The Uighurs, who make up about half of the population of Xinjiang in northwestern China, complain of discrimination and say the government limits their religious practices. The Chinese government, however, says the Uighurs receive benefits that the Han do not, such as the right to have more children, and says Uighur dissidents want to create a separate nation in Xinjiang.

China, Uighur Groups Present Conflicting Accounts of Unrest

By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, July 25, 2009

BEIJING -- Three weeks after the riots that left nearly 200 people dead and more than 1,700 injured in the capital of the far western Xinjiang region, the Chinese government and Uighur exile groups have been circulating dueling versions of what happened, in an emotional global propaganda war with geopolitical implications.

According to the version of events offered by China's Foreign Ministry and state media, the ethnic unrest that erupted in Urumqi on July 5 was a terrorist attack by Uighur separatists. Women in black Islamic robes stood at street corners giving orders, and at least one handed out clubs, officials said, before Muslim Uighur gangs in 50 locations throughout the city simultaneously began beating Han Chinese.

In the account being circulated by Rebiya Kadeer, a U.S.-based Uighur leader who has emerged as the community's main spokesman, Chinese security forces were responsible for the violence that night. According to Kadeer, police and paramilitary and other troops chased peaceful demonstrators, mostly young people protesting a deadly factory brawl elsewhere, into closed-off areas. Then they turned off streetlights and began shooting indiscriminately.

Clear Details Absent

Chinese authorities have allowed foreign reporters access to the area where the clashes occurred and unusual freedom to conduct interviews, and they have provided evidence verifying the brutal attacks on Han Chinese. But few details are clear, and many witnesses who might be able to answer other questions -- Who set off the initial violence? Why were the police unable to stop the attacks? -- are either in jail or dead.

"The narratives of both the Chinese government and outside observers about what happened are hobbled by the lack of independent, verifiable accounts," said Phelim Kine, a researcher with New York-based Human Rights Watch, which is calling for a U.N. investigation into the incident.

Both sides face huge obstacles in trying to convince the world of their stories.

The Chinese government, after decades of covering up and denying such incidents, has a major trust problem, many analysts say. Chinese officials have said they will release video footage of the attacks, phone records and other evidence to support their view of the events in Urumqi, but have not yet done so.

For Kadeer, a 63-year-old former business mogul from Xinjiang who was exiled in 2005 and now lives in the Washington area, observers say the main challenge is convincing people that she can give an authoritative account of events that happened in a country she has not visited in years. Uighur exile groups have declined to provide information about their sources in China, saying they fear that those people will be arrested or worse if they speak out.

Resentment has been building for years between Han Chinese, who make up 92 percent of China's population and dominate its politics and economy, and Uighurs, who once were the majority in the far west, but whose presence there has shrunk in recent decades because of migration by Han Chinese.

Although the Chinese government says its policies have improved Uighurs' educational and job opportunities, some Uighurs say its goal is to assimilate them at the expense of their language, religion and culture.

In the past, the government has linked Uighur separatism to a group known as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which it characterizes as a terrorist organization and blames for some recent attacks. Some analysts say that China exaggerates the influence of this group.

When it comes to the events of July 5, Dong Guanpeng, director of the Global Journalism Institute at Tsinghua University in Beijing, said he thinks China is being honest this time, but that doubts have been cast on the information it is releasing because Kadeer is "doing a better job than the Chinese government in public relations."

"Of course, Rebiya's statements have won sympathy in foreign countries," Dong said. "They contain beautiful lies."

Kadeer's version of events appears to have gained traction abroad. In Turkey, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has expressed solidarity with China's Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking minority group, and described the riots as "a kind of genocide." Protesters in Tokyo, Washington, Munich and Amsterdam have descended on Chinese embassies and consulates demanding a full account of what happened to Uighurs. A top Iranian cleric condemned China for "horribly" suppressing the community, and al-Qaeda's North African arm vowed to avenge Uighurs' deaths.

Zhan Jiang, a professor of journalism and mass communications at the China Youth University for Political Sciences, contends that the Chinese government inadvertently elevated Kadeer's status and gave her an audience that she does not deserve. Beijing has accused Kadeer of being the "mastermind" behind the clashes in Urumqi, accusations she denies.

"The government should haven't portrayed her as a hero by condemning her. She was unknown at first, and she is a well-known person in the world right now," Zhan said.

Gaps in Both Stories

Meanwhile, China has hit back by assigning some blame to third parties. The Communist Party's People's Daily newspaper said that the United States backed the "separatists" who launched the attacks. It also said that Kadeer's organization received funds from the National Endowment for Democracy, which in turn is funded by the U.S. Congress. Separately, the official China Daily has played up the terrorism angle, saying that the riots were meant to "help" al-Qaeda and were related to the continuing U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.

Some analysts say there are holes in both sides' narratives.

For instance, according to Kadeer's timeline of events, the violence was triggered by police who "under the cover of darkness . . . began to fire" on the protesters. But witnesses have said the rioting began about 8 p.m. Beijing time, when the sun was still up in Urumqi, 1,500 miles west of Beijing.

Chang Chungfu, a specialist in Muslim and Uighur studies at the National Chengchi University in Taiwan, said "the two parties -- the government and Kadeer -- are choosing the parts of the stories that favor their own agendas," in efforts to win foreign sympathy.

He said he considers it "unlikely that a peaceful protest turned into violence against innocent people just because of policemen cracking down," suggesting at least a measure of organization to the Uighurs' attacks on Han Chinese that night.

On the other hand, Chang said, he is skeptical of the government's assertions that Kadeer instigated the attacks because she lacks that kind of power. Furthermore, he said, "the government hasn't released detailed information of those who were killed, such as their ages and identities, so even the number of dead is in doubt."

Li Wei, a terrorism expert at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, which is affiliated with China's national security bureau, dismissed allegations by state media of involvement by outside terrorist groups. "I have not found any proof that points at linkage between the riot and other terrorism groups, including al-Qaeda," he said.

Li did say, however, that he believes Kadeer is in contact with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement.

Rohan Gunaratna, a Singapore-based terrorism expert, blamed some of the tension on Beijing's failure to differentiate "between terrorists who attack and the political activities of separatists."

"If China is too hard on the Uighur people, then support of terrorism will grow," Gunaratna said. "The Chinese government must be hard on terrorists but soft on the Uighur people."

Researchers Liu Liu, Wang Juan and Zhang Jie contributed to this report.

China Urges U.S. to Prevent Separatist Activities

BEIJING, July 22 (Xinhua) -- A senior Chinese diplomat on Wednesday urged the United States to prevent separatist activities against China on U.S. territory, saying the July 5 riot in the northwestern region of Xinjiang was a grave and violent criminal incident.

"The nature of the riot is neither an ethnic problem nor a religious issue, but a grave and violent criminal incident plotted and organized by the outside forces of terrorism, separatism and extremism," Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei told a press briefing on the first round of the China-U.S. strategic and economic dialogue.

The violence in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, had left 197 people dead and more than 1,600 injured. Houses of 633 families were damaged and 627 vehicles were smashed and torched.

Some separatists, including World Uyghur Congress (WUC) president Rebiya Kadeer who flew to the United States on medical parole in 2005, were conducting separatist activities in foreign countries, said He.

"Chinese people know well about their activities and I suppose the U.S. side did so too," He said.

Rebiya Kakeer and her WUC, which was seeking "Xinjiang independence", were believed by the Chinese to be behind the Urumqi riots and a series of protests at Chinese embassies worldwide.

"China and the United States took care of each other's core concerns, which facilitated the sound development of bilateral ties since President Barack Obama took office," He said.

"We noticed that the U.S. government's statements were cautious in general and if this issue is touched upon during the dialogue, I think both sides could discuss in a peaceful manner," He said.

The issue, as well as the Chinese government's measures to protect the life and property, however, was China's internal affair, he said.

The dialogue will be held in Washington, D.C. from July 27 to 28. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will join their Chinese Co-Chairs, State Councilor Dai Bingguo and Vice Premier Wang Qishan.

Uighurs Lose Economic Ground to Han

By IAN JOHNSON

URUMQI, China -- As Chinese leaders look to prevent another outbreak of ethnic violence, they face a key question: how to spread China's growing wealth to its ethnic minorities when they are losing control over even their traditional industries?

This month's rioting in the capital of China's northwestern Xinjiang region left 197 people dead and more than 1,700 injured, the government says. According to official statistics, most victims were ethnic Chinese, or Han, attacked by Uighurs, the once-dominant group in Xinjiang that is increasingly being eclipsed.

Although the immediate catalyst for the attacks appears to have been the murder of two Uighurs in a southern Chinese factory, longer-term problems have simmered. Like Tibetans, who rioted last year against Han partly in protest of growing Han control of their region's economic life, many Uighurs feel that Han are taking over Xinjiang's economy. Most galling to some Uighurs, Han seem to be taking over traditional Uighur industries -- from traditional markets to Muslim foodstuffs.

In downtown Urumqi, for example, the main marketplace is in Han hands, although it features sculptures of Uighur merchants outside and bills itself as a grand Central Asian bazaar to rival Istanbul or Samarkand. Even some large companies making halal foods -- those prepared according to Muslim purity laws -- are run by Han and not Uighurs. In tourism, which has boomed in recent years by featuring the exoticism of the Uighur culture, Han companies seem to dominate.

"For the Uighurs, it's their homeland, but they're not the ones who have benefited from economic growth and development," says Jing Huang, a professor of Chinese politics at National University of Singapore.

More than 90% of China's population is Han, with the rest divided among 55 smaller ethnic groups. China aims to help its minorities through an array of generous policies, from easier college admission to soft loans and hiring requirements. Some of these have helped to create a small class of prosperous Uighurs who sit on government advisory boards and have risen to top levels in the region's government. The current head of the exiled Uighur opposition, Rebiya Kadeer, for example, was a prominent Uighur businesswoman before she left.

An exact calculation of ethnic income or hiring isn't possible because while the government collects such figures, it doesn't make them public. But available statistics indicate a stubborn gap. Xinjiang's economy has doubled from 2002 to 2008, but it remains reliant on energy -- especially oil, coal and gas -- for 60% of its economic output. The companies involved in these industries are run by Han companies, and visits to oil fields suggest that most employees are Han Chinese.

Rural statistics also imply ethnic inequality. Most Uighurs live in the countryside, especially in the southern part of the province. Last year, government statistics showed rural annual income averaged 3,800 yuan ($560) in Xinjiang as a whole, but for rural residents in southern Xinjiang it is much lower. For example rural residents around the oasis town of Khotan earn 2,226 yuan a year, according to government figures. Agriculture in northern Xinjiang, which is less arid and supports cotton farming, is controlled by the Han-dominated Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, a quasi-military organization established to pacify the region.

Read More

• Opinion: China v. Civil Society
• China Defends Policies on Minorities

Government programs have sought to level this imbalance. Soft loans to small-scale farmers, most of whom are Uighurs, have enabled them to expand production. The government has also encouraged large food companies to sign long-term contracts with small farmers to give them some economic stability.

"The government really has made a good-faith effort to improve minorities' livelihood," said Wang Ning, an economist at the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences.

Anecdotal evidence suggests Han control has expanded beyond the obvious areas of energy and large-scale agriculture. Huo Lanlan is a prominent Han entrepreneur who runs Xinjiang Jiayu Industrial & Trading Co. Her company offers 46 halal food products, from lamb and horse meat to camel and chicken.It is now one of Xinjiang's largest halal food processors, supplying Air China with food for its flights to Xinjiang and Muslim countries.

Most of her 300 employees, however, are Han, she says. She says she has a few Uighur employees, such as a cleaning lady, but all top positions are Han. "It's a requirement of all halal food companies to have Uighur employees," she said.

Equally striking is the Grand Bazaar. Once a stronghold of Uighur entrepreneurs, most of the bazaar was torn down and rebuilt in 2003 by a Hong Kong developer and Xinjiang Grandscape Group, a Han-run company. Just like in the fabled Silk Road city of Kashgar, whose old town is being torn down by the city's Han mayor, many Uighurs seem uneasy by the developments.

The new bazaar now features anchor tenants, such as a Kentucky Fried Chicken and French department-store chain Carrefour, both run by Han Chinese. Located in the heart of the Uighur part of Urumqi, it hasn't yet been reopened because many of the tenants are Han and afraid to return there, according to Han and Uighur business people interviewed.

Across the street is what is left of the traditional bazaar, a ramshackle series of alleys lined with small-scale Uighur businesses. The area is one of the last parts of the city where riot police are omnipresent, and the road between the old and new bazaars is still blocked to traffic.

"We are not so well organized like the Han," said one Uighur who owns a stand selling jeans. "They have the bazaar now."

—Jason Dean in Beijing contributed to this article.

Write to Ian Johnson at ian.johnson@wsj.com

Countering Riots, China Rounds Up Hundreds

By ANDREW JACOBS

URUMQI, China — The two boys were seized while kneading dough at a sidewalk bakery.

The livery driver went out to get a drink of water and did not come home.

Tuer Shunjal, a vegetable vendor, was bundled off with four of his neighbors when he made the mistake of peering out from a hallway bathroom during a police sweep of his building. “They threw a shirt over his head and led him away without saying a word,” said his wife, Resuangul.

In the two weeks since ethnic riots tore through Urumqi, the regional capital of Xinjiang, killing more than 190 people and injuring more than 1,700, security forces have been combing the city and detaining hundreds of people, many of them Uighur men whom the authorities blame for much of the slaughter.

The Chinese government has promised harsh punishment for those who had a hand in the violence, which erupted July 5 after a rally by ethnic Uighurs angry over the murder of two factory workers in a distant province. First came the packs of young Uighurs, then the Han Chinese mobs seeking revenge.

“To those who have committed crimes with cruel means, we will execute them,” Li Zhi, the top Communist Party official in Urumqi, said July 8.

The vow, broadcast repeatedly, has struck fear into Xiangyang Po, a grimy quarter of the city dominated by Uighurs, Turkic-speaking Muslims who have often had an uneasy relationship with China’s Han majority. Uighurs are the largest ethnic group in Xinjiang, but in Urumqi, Han make up more than 70 percent of the 2.3 million residents.

It was here on the streets of Xiangyang Po, amid the densely packed tenements and stalls selling thick noodles and lamb kebabs, that many Han were killed. As young Uighur men marauded through the streets, residents huddled inside their homes or shops, they said; others claim they gave refuge to Han neighbors.

“It was horrible for everyone,” said Leitipa Yusufajan, 40, who spent the night cowering at the back of her grocery store with her 10-year-old daughter. “The rioters were not from here. Our people would not behave so brutally.”

But to security officials, the neighborhood has long been a haven for those bent on violently cleaving Xinjiang, a northwest region, from China. Last year, during a raid on an apartment, the authorities fatally shot two men they said were part of a terrorist group making homemade explosives. Last Monday, police officers killed two men and wounded a third, the authorities said, after the men tried to attack officers on patrol.

“This is not a safe place,” said Mao Daqing, the local police chief.

Local residents disagree, saying the neighborhood is made up of poor but law-abiding people, most of them farmers who came to Urumqi seeking a slice of the city’s prosperity. Interviews with two dozen people showed vehement condemnation of the rioters. “Those people are nothing but human trash,” one man said, spitting on the ground.

Still, the police response has been indiscriminate, they said. Nurmen Met, 54, said his two sons, 19 and 21, were nabbed as riot officers entered the public bathhouse his family owns. “They weren’t even outside on the day of the troubles,” he said, holding up photos of his sons. “They are good, honest boys.”

Many people said they feared that their family members might be swallowed up by a penal system that is vast and notoriously opaque. Last year, in the months leading to the Beijing Olympics, the authorities arrested and tried more than 1,100 people in Xinjiang during a campaign against what they called “religious extremists and separatists.”

Shortly after the arrests, Wang Lequan, the region’s Communist Party secretary, described the crackdown as a “life and death” struggle.

Uighur exile groups and human rights advocates say the government sometimes uses such charges to silence those who press for greater religious and political freedoms. Trials, they say, are often cursory. “Justice is pretty rough in Xinjiang,” said James Seymour, a senior research fellow at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

In a sign of the sensitivities surrounding the unrest, the Bureau for Legal Affairs in Beijing has warned lawyers to stay away from cases in Xinjiang, suggesting that those who assist anyone accused of rioting pose a threat to national unity. Officials on Friday shut down the Open Constitution Initiative, a consortium of volunteer lawyers who have taken on cases that challenge the government and other powerful interests. Separately, the bureau canceled the licenses of 53 lawyers, some of whom had offered to help Tibetans accused of rioting last year in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.

Rights advocates say that if the trials in Xinjiang resemble those that took place in Tibet, many defendants will receive long sentences. “There is a lot of concern that those who have been detained in Xinjiang will not get a fair trial,” said Wang Songlian, a research coordinator at Chinese Human Rights Defenders, an advocacy group.

Residents of Xiangyang Po say police officers made two morning sweeps through the neighborhood after the rioting began, randomly grabbing boys as young as 16. That spurred a crowd of anguished women to march to the center of Urumqi to demand the men’s release.

But none of the detainees has come home, the residents say, and the authorities have refused to provide information about their whereabouts.

“I go to the police station every day, but they just tell me to be patient and wait,” said Patiguli Palachi, whose husband, an electronics repairman, was taken in his pajamas with four other occupants of their courtyard house. Ms. Palachi said they might have been detained because a Han man was killed outside their building, but she insisted that her husband was not involved. “We were hiding inside at the time, terrified like everyone else,” she said.

Although it was impossible to verify the accounts of the residents, as Ms. Palachi spoke, more than 10 people gathered to share similar accounts.

Emboldened by the presence of foreign journalists, the group decided to walk to the local police station to confront the police again. “Maybe if you are with us, they will give an answer,” said Memet Banjia, a vegetable seller looking for his son. “Probably they will say nothing and the next day we will disappear, too.”

But the meeting with the police was not to be. As the residents approached the station house, a squad car roared up and the crowd melted away. The foreigners were ordered into the car and driven to the station house. After an hour’s wait, a pair of high-ranking security officials arrived with a lecture and a warning.

“You can’t be here; it’s too unsafe,” one of them said as he drove the foreigners back to the heavily patrolled center of the city. “It’s for your own good.”

Zhang Jing contributed research.