Chinese police clashed with members of the Uighur ethnic minority in Xinjiang, authorities and an activist said on Thursday, the first reported outbreak of violence in the area since two high-profile attacks during the Olympics.
Two Chinese policemen died and seven more were wounded. It was not immediately clear what ignited Wednesday’s conflict in a village in Jiashi County, or whether any Uighurs were injured.
Activist Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the Germany-based World Uyghur Congress, said witnesses heard “fierce gunfire” and saw at least 20 Uighurs arrested — part of what he says is a wider, ongoing crackdown. He did not give any other details.
A public security official said eight Uighurs — seven men and one woman — were involved. One man had been captured, but the others were at large, said the official, who refused to give his name as is common among Chinese officials.
Mu’erbiya, an official from Jiashi County’s communist party propaganda office, said two police officers had died and an investigation was under way. Like some Uighurs, she uses one name.
Seven police officers were being treated at the No. 1 People’s Hospital in Kashgar, including one for stab wounds, said a woman at the hospital’s emergency center who declined to give her name.
China has long said that militants among the region’s dominant ethnic Uighurs are leading a separatist movement in Xinjiang, an oil and gas-rich region on the border with Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries. The Uighurs are Turkic-speaking Muslims with a language and culture distinct from Han Chinese.
Critics accuse Beijing of using claims of terrorism as an excuse to crack down on peaceful pro-independence sentiment and expressions of Uighur identity.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang (秦剛) on Thursday confirmed reports of the Jiashi incident but did not provide any details.
He said there were only sporadic tensions in Xinjiang.
“People of various ethnic groups coexist in harmony and equality and the situation in Xinjiang is generally good,” Qin said at a regular briefing.
“This has nothing to do with any alleged persecution or oppression of the Uighur people,” he said.
He said there was a handful of Uighur “terrorist forces attempting to create violence and split China” but that the government and authorities were cracking down on them.
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