Thai PM: Thailand Returning to Normal

Thailand's prime minister has said the country is "calm and returning to normality", four days after a deadly military crackdown on anti-government protesters sparked arson and looting.

Abhisit Vejjajiva, appearing relaxed and confident, said in his regular Sunday television address that "everything is calm and returning to normality".

He said schools, streets and government agencies would reopen on Monday after being closed to keep civilians out of central Bangkok during clashes between government forces and the so-called red shirts.

However, Abhisit indicated that a night-time curfew in force for four nights in Bangkok and 23 other provinces could be extended for another two nights.

Squads of workers remain out on Bangkok's thoroughfares, continuing to clean up in the aftermath of Wednesday's crackdown and ensuing riots, which left at least 15 people dead, bringing to 85 the number of people who have died since the first violence flared on April 10.

The violence also left nearly 100 people wounded, bringing to around 1,400 those who have been injured in the crisis.

Crackdown defended

Despite the high human cost, Abhisit defended the conduct of government forces.

in depth

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"The losses were caused by clashes between groups of people attacking authorities' efforts to set up checkpoints to secure the area," he said.

"All weapons use was based on international standards. Weapons were used for self defence and to establish peace and order."

Seeking to blunt criticism from international rights groups as well as the red shirts, who said they were largely unarmed, the government displayed on Saturday a huge cache of weapons it said had been collected from the ruins of the protesters' encampment.

The rifles, bullets, grenades and components of bombs were put on display to defend the government's position that troops faced a serious threat and exercised appropriate force when they moved in to clear the main protest area on Wednesday.

However, Abhisit admitted there were serious concerns over fighting at a temple within the red shirts' camp. It had been designated a "safe zone" but six bodies were found there after the crackdown.

"The most distressing were the deaths at the Pathum Vanaram temple," he said.

He maintained there was no military action at the time of the temple shootings, but said the events would be investigated by an independent committee.

Concern has been growing over rights abuses in Thailand, with the European Union the latest to call on the authorities to respect the rights of protesters and saying the violence had harmed the nation.

Emergency decree

New York-based Human Rights Watch said it was concerned that Thai authorities were using what it called a "draconian" emergency decree to hold red shirt prisoners in secret detention.

Elaine Pearson, HRW's acting Asia director, said the crisis was "no excuse for mistreating detained protesters or holding them in secret detention.

IN VIDEO

Red shirt protesters go underground

But there has also been criticism that the government has been too lenient in its treatment of suspected red-shirt leaders after pictures of the men looking relaxed and smiling for group shots in a spacious, well-furnished house were circulated on the internet

Some of the suspects also reportedly continued to send text messages to supporters and the media for days after they were detained.

The Thai police said on Saturday that eight suspected red shirt leaders being detained at a seaside police camp south of Bangkok, had now been separated and had their phones taken away.

The police said they put the men in the one house because there were not enough rooms elsewhere and the house was more secure.

Umnuay Nimmano, the deputy commander of the Metropolitan Police, said that police could not imprison the detainees because they had not been convicted of any crimes.

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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.”

Riots Engulf Chinese Uighur City

Groups of ethnic Han Chinese have marched through the city of Urumqi carrying clubs and machetes, as tension grows between ethnic groups and police.

Security forces imposed a curfew and fired tear gas to disperse the crowds, who said they were angry at violence carried out by ethnic Muslim Uighurs.

Earlier, Uighur women had rallied against the arrest of more than 1,400 people over deadly clashes on Sunday.

The two sides blame each other for the outbreak of violence.

AT THE SCENE Quentin Sommerville, Urumqi There are many armed military police standing around, also a few remnants of those Han Chinese demonstrators, still people wandering around the city carrying poles and batons and some carrying knives. There's a great air of trepidation here as to how this night will play out. I wouldn't have thought today that I would have seen Uighur men and women acting so defiantly in the face of Han Chinese authority, but they did. I wouldn't have thought that thousands of Han Chinese would be able to walk freely through a Chinese city and march and shout slogans. Xinjiang is one of the most tightly-controlled parts of the country. Those controls seem to have slipped quite considerably.

Officials say 156 people - mostly ethnic Han Chinese - died in Sunday's violence. Uighur groups say many more have died, claiming 90% of the dead were Uighurs.

The unrest erupted when Uighur protesters attacked vehicles before turning on local Han Chinese and battling security forces in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang province.

They had initially been protesting over a brawl between Uighurs and Han Chinese several weeks earlier in a toy factory thousands of miles away in Guangdong province.

On Tuesday about 200 Uighurs - mostly women - faced off against riot police to appeal for more than 1,400 people arrested over Sunday's violence to be freed.

'Heart-breaking' violence

Later hundreds of Han Chinese marched through the streets of Urumqi smashing shops and stalls belonging to Uighurs.

The BBC's Quentin Sommerville, in Urumqi, says some of the protesters were shouting "down with Uighurs" as they rampaged through the streets armed with homemade weapons.

UIGHURS AND XINJIANG Xinjiang population is 45% Uighur, 40% Han Chinese Uighurs are ethnically Turkic Muslims China re-established control in 1949 after crushing short-lived state of East Turkestan Since then, large-scale immigration of Han Chinese Sporadic violence since 1991 Attack on 4 Aug 2008 near Kashgar kills 16 Chinese policemen In pictures: Protests Q&A: China and the Uighurs China tells its own story Accounts of Xinjiang violence

Police used loudspeakers to urge the crowd to stop and later fired tear gas, as the Han Chinese confronted groups of Uighurs.

One protester, clutching a metal bar, told the AFP news agency: "The Uighurs came to our area to smash things, now we are going to their area to beat them."

Urumqi's mayor, Jierla Yishamudin, said a "life and death" struggle was being waged to maintain China's unity.

"It is neither an ethnic issue nor a religious issue, but a battle of life and death to defend the unification of our motherland and to maintain the consolidation of all ethnic groups, a political battle that's fierce and of blood and fire," he told a news conference.

One official described Sunday's unrest as the "deadliest riot since New China was founded in 1949".

Xinjiang's Communist Party chief Wang Lequan announced during a televised address that a curfew would run from 2100 until 0800.

State-run news agency Xinhua quoted him as saying any ethnic violence was "heart-breaking" and blaming "hostile forces both at home and abroad" for the trouble.

China's authorities have repeatedly claimed that exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer is stirring up trouble in the region.

But she told the BBC she was not responsible for any of the violence.

"Last time during the Tibet riots, [the Chinese government] blamed the Dalai Lama, and now with the Xinjiang riot, they are blaming me," she said.

"I will never damage the relationship between two communities and will never damage the relationship between people. For me, all human beings are equal."