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China official says police killed 12 in regional ethnic violence

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] Nur Bekri, chairman of the government in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, told the Xinhua News Agency Sunday that twelve "mobsters" had been fatally shot by police in the Chinese city of Urumqi on July 5 in riots that received extensive coverage in the West. Nur Bekri went on the say that the police had fired warning shots and that he was making the announcement in order "to erase the negative effects of the riots in the shortest period of time." Shortly after the rioting, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay called for restraint from all sides and a respect for due process in arrests and prosecutions. Pillay's remarks come two days after violence broke out between Han Chinese and Uighur residents in Xinjiang's regional capital. The Chinese government says that the majority of those killed in the violence were Han residents killed by protesters, although the World Uyghur Congress and the Uyghur American Association say that many protesters were killed by authorities but not included in the official death toll. The Uighur population, which is Muslim, is opposed to China's restrictive bans on religious practice, and say that the recent influx of Han Chinese has disenfranchised non-Chinese-speaking Uighurs.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on July 19, 2009 (boomark / email).