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| -APRIL, 1997- |
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Chinese police fire on Muslim crowd; 2 dead
April 28, 1997 Web posted at: 1:51 p.m. EDT (1751 GMT)
BEIJING (CNN) -- An official in China's western Xinjiang province said Monday that two people were killed and five wounded when police fired on a crowd of protesters who surrounded buses taking convicted rioters to jail.
The shooting last Thursday followed a public rally at which three people were sentenced to death and 27 others to prison for involvement in anti-Chinese riots in February. A Chinese official, who would give only his surname Zang, said several dozen ethnic Uighurs surrounded the buses in what some described as a possible rescue attempt.
After warning the crowds to disperse, Zang said, Chinese paramilitary police opened fire. He said authorities were investigating whether the trouble was related to Muslim separatists in Xinjiang. Xinjiang's Uighurs and other Muslim ethnic groups have grown increasingly resentful of Chinese rule and settlers in recent years.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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China executes 3 for inciting riots, 27 others sentenced to jail
April 26, 1997 Web posted at: 1:28 p.m. EDT (1728 GMT)
BEIJING (CNN) -- Three men were sentenced to death and executed the same day for their roles in bloody riots that rocked northern China earlier this year, Chinese authorities said Saturday. Twenty-seven others were sentenced to penalties ranging from seven years in prison to life imprisonment.
More than 5,000 people packed a sports stadium in the Yili district of Xinjiang, the troubled Muslim region near the border with Kazakstan, to see the group sentenced at a Thursday rally.
All of the convicted men were members of the ethnic Uighur minority, Xinjiang's largest Muslim group, who have grown increasingly resentful in recent years of Chinese rule and settlers.
The three men executed were sentenced to death for wounding, hooliganism, arson and beatings.
Death penalties in China are often carried out shortly after sentencing with a bullet to the head.
At least 10 people were killed and 140 others injured when crowds of young Muslims beat people during a pro-independence rally in Yining on February 5 and 6. It was among the worst violence to rattle Xinjiang since the 1949 Communist takeover.
News reports said the Yili District Intermediate People's Court and the court for Yining city in Yili, which held the public rally, sentenced one person to life imprisonment for hooliganism. Twenty-six others reportedly drew sentences ranging from 7 to 18 years in prison.
The Xinjiang Daily said they were first batch of rioters sentenced, suggesting there will be more.
Xinjiang, a vast region that is home to many Turkic-speaking peoples such as the Uighurs, has a long history of ethnic unrest and has recently been rocked by Muslim separatist violence.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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Chinese leader:
Stopping Xinjiang rebels 'top priority'
April 13, 1997 Web posted at: 10:47 p.m. EDT (0247 GMT)
BEIJING (CNN) -- In a clear warning to Muslim independence fighters, a top Chinese leader said Sunday that stopping a budding separatist movement in remote northwestern Xinjiang province is a top priority of the government.
"We must firmly oppose national separatism and religious extremist forces," Qiao Shi, chairman of the National People's Congress, said in a speech to Communist Party, government and military leaders in Urumqi, the province's capital.
Populated by Turkic-speaking Uighurs and other Muslim ethnic groups opposed to Chinese rule, Xinjiang was the scene of violent protests and bombings earlier this year that left 10 people dead.
An exile group in Kazakstan said Sunday that separatists set off two bombs at a dam near the town of Shikonze.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Does China have ethnic unity?
Violence indicates 'no;' leaders say 'yes'
April 4, 1997 Web posted at: 4:07 p.m. EST (2107 GMT)
From Correspondent Rebecca MacKinnon
(CNN) -- Despite China's problems with separatists in Tibet and the Muslim-dominated Xinjiang region, Beijing insists that the vast country's ethnic groups are treated fairly and are in harmony with the majority. Critics aren't so sure.
Authorities blame ethnic minorities for a series of recent violent incidents, but they deny claims that five Muslim men from the Uighur ethnic group were executed late last month in the aftermath of anti-Chinese riots in the far western province of Xinjiang.
Most Uighurs (pronounced WEE-ghers) in China are peaceful and law-abiding. In the rest of China, the majority Han Chinese generally associate the Uighurs with ethnic songs, dances, food and colorful clothing.
But there are signs of a growing and sometimes violent separatist movement.
In February there was a bus bombing in the middle of Beijing's busiest shopping district. No one claimed responsibility for that blast, which came just one week after bombs allegedly planted by Uighur terrorists killed and injured people in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang where most of China's Uighurs live.
Those bombings came soon after riots by Uighurs were suppressed by police in another part of Xinjiang.
Token power, or real?
Within days of the Beijing bombing, President Jiang Zemin appeared on national television with China's most famous Uighur singer to appeal for ethnic unity.
The annual National People's Congress, which meets in Beijing, includes delegates from more than 50 ethnic groups making up 7 percent of China's population.
But actions taken by the Congress "become token, particularly in terms of political representation," says Dru Gladney of the East-West Center, a Hawaii-based research center.
At Beijing's Central Nationalities University, President Ha Jing Xiong, himself a Muslim, says he's a living example of the government's policy of ethnic equality.
The school's ethnic minority students come from around the country to be educated the government's way . They're taught how to become loyal citizens, not separatists.
"I didn't decide to come here," says a woman student from Tibet. "I got a high score on the college entrance exam, so they sent me here."
To emphasize their commitment to ethnic equality, Chinese leaders continue to stage photo opportunities to show how much they care about minorities.
But in a time when terrorist bombs can reach Beijing, such images may no longer be convincing.
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