At least 140 killed in China protests

[HURAKAN]

Scores killed in China protests

Violence in China's restive western region of Xinjiang has left at least 140 people dead and more than 800 people injured, state media say.

Several hundred people were arrested after a protest, in the city of Urumqi on Sunday, turned violent.

Beijing says Uighurs went on the rampage but one exiled Uighur leader says police fired on students.

The protest was reportedly prompted by a deadly fight between Uighurs and Han Chinese in southern China last month.

The BBC's Chris Hogg in Shanghai says this is one of the most serious clashes between the authorities and demonstrators in China since Tiananmen Square in 1989.

'Dark day'

Eyewitnesses said the violence started on Sunday in Urumqi after a protest of a few hundred people grew to more than 1,000.

Xinhua says the protesters carried knives, bricks and batons, smashed cars and stores, and fought with security forces.

Wu Nong, news director for the Xinjiang government, said more than 260 vehicles were attacked and more than 200 shops and houses damaged. An overnight curfew was imposed.

It is still unclear who died and why so many were killed.

The Xinjiang government blamed separatist Uighurs based abroad for orchestrating attacks on ethnic Han Chinese.

But Uighur groups insisted their protest was peaceful and had fallen victim to state violence, with police firing indiscriminately on protesters in Urumqi.

UIGHURS AND XINJIANG
# Uighurs are ethnically Turkic Muslims
# They make up about 8m of the 14m population
# China re-established control in 1949 after crushing short-lived state of East Turkestan
# Since then, large-scale immigration of Han Chinese
# Uighurs fear erosion of traditional culture
# Sporadic violence since 1991
# Attack on 4 Aug 2008 near Kashgar kills 16 Chinese policemen

The Uighur exiles dispute official figures, saying the protest was 10,000 strong and that 600 people were killed.

Dolkun Isa, a spokesman for the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) in Munich, rejected reports on Xinhua that it had instigated the protests.

Xinhua had quoted the Xinjiang government as blaming WUC leader Rebiya Kadeer for "masterminding" the violence.

But Dolkun Isa said the WUC had called on Friday only for protests at Chinese embassies around the world.

Alim Seytoff, the vice-president of another Uighur group - the US-based Uighur American Association - condemned the "heavy-handed" actions of the security forces.

"We ask the international community to condemn China's killing of innocent Uighurs. This is a very dark day in the history of the Uighur people," he said.

Internet blocks

The Uighurs in Urumqi were reportedly angry over an ethnic clash last month in the city of Shaoguan in southern Guangdong province.

A man there was said to have posted a message on a local website claiming six boys from Xinjiang had "raped two innocent girls".

Police said the false claim sparked a vicious brawl between Han and Uighur ethnic groups at a factory. Two Uighurs were killed and 118 people were injured.

BBC sources in China report they have been unable to open the Twitter messaging site in Shanghai and that message boards on Xinjiang on a number of websites were not taking posts.

Reports from Xinjiang suggest some internet and mobile phone services have been blocked.

Analysts say the government's so-called Great Firewall of China, which it uses to block unwanted internet material, will prevent large-scale dissemination of information but that dedicated internet users can bypass it fairly easily.

BBC China editor Shirong Chen says there has been ethnic tension in Xinjiang since before the founding of the People's Republic.

Some of its Uighur population of about eight million want to break away from China and its majority Han Chinese population.

The authorities say police are securing order across the region and anyone creating a disturbance will be detained and punished.

However, our China editor says there may be questions asked about their inability to prevent a protest they knew about days in advance.

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