US must act to prevent Uighur Tiananmen

US must act to prevent Uighur Tiananmen
Tue, Jul 07, 2009
AFP




WASHINGTON - US lawmakers on Monday urged the United States to strongly condemn the crackdown against Muslim Uighurs in China's Xinjiang region to avoid a repeat of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

"The Chinese regime in Beijing should not be allowed to engage in another Tienanmen Square with impunity," representatives Bill Delahunt and Dana Rohrabacher wrote in an open letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"It is time for the United States to take a stand against Chinese abuse of Uighurs in Xinjiang... We cannot have a 'business as usual' relationship with a regime that shoots down factory workers and students over labor issues."


Delahunt, a Democrat, is chairman of a Foreign Affairs Committee panel in the US House of Representatives, while Rohrabacher is the top Republican on the International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight subcommittee.

Baton-wielding riot police deployed Tuesday in China's tense northwest city of Urumqi following bloody weekend riots that Beijing said left at least 156 people dead and 1,080 injured.

Authorities meanwhile announced the mass arrest of more than 1,400 people over what they said were riots started by Uighurs.

The Uighurs themselves have said the gathering was supposed to be a peaceful demonstration in protest at attacks on Uighurs in eastern China, where young men and women from the Muslim minority are sent to work in factories, while huge numbers of Han Chinese are shipped to their homeland in western China.

Exiled Uighur groups have sought to lay the blame for Sunday's violence on Chinese authorities, saying the protests were peaceful until Chinese security forces over-reacted and fired indiscriminately on crowds.

China's eight million Uighurs are a Turkic-speaking minority who have long complained about the influx of Han Chinese into what they regard as their homeland, as well as political and cultural repression.

The White House earlier Monday issued a brief statement saying the United States was "deeply concerned" about the reported deaths in Urumqi and calling on "all in Xinjiang to exercise restraint."

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