China will this week put more than 200 people on trial over last month’s deadly ethnic unrest in Xinjiang, with security tight because of fears of fresh violence, state media said yesterday.
The trials will take place at the Intermediate People’s Court in Urumqi, the capital of the mainly Muslim northwest region where, according to Beijing, violence early last month left at least 197 people dead, the China Daily reported, citing unnamed officials.
The more than 200 defendants will face charges ranging from disrupting traffic to murder, the paper said, meaning that some of them could be given the death penalty. Authorities had previously announced only 83 formal arrests.
Armed police have started around-the-clock patrols in the area near the courthouse in a massive security build-up ahead of the hearings, the paper said.
Local residents have voiced concerns that the trials will rekindle the same raw emotions among the city’s different ethnic groups that fanned the deadly street clashes less than two months ago.
“Many bereaved Han families will come to wait for the verdicts and the authorities fear they may clash with any Uighur in their presence,” Guo Mei, a saleswoman who works near the court, told the China Daily.
The violence that broke out in Urumqi on July 5 pitted Han Chinese against Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking and predominantly Muslim people, in the worst ethnic unrest to hit the country in decades.
The paper reported intense public interest in the trials, which will all be public, except for those dealing with “splitting the state.”
“I’d be very angry if those rioters receive light sentences or escape justice,” an unnamed worker said. “They should be given harsh penalties for causing the loss of so many innocent lives.”
One Han shopkeeper told the China Daily that Han Chinese who “overreacted” when seeking out Uighurs in retaliatory mob violence following the initial riots “should be granted leniency by the judge.”
Both court officials and prosecutors declined to comment when contacted. A city government official surnamed Ma said he had “no information so far” about the trials.
With doubts remaining over who was to blame for the violence, the future of ethnic relations in volatile Xinjiang hinges to a large extent on how the Chinese government handles the aftermath, observers said.
“There is profound distrust on both sides in terms of Han Chinese and Uighurs,” said Phelim Kine, an Asia researcher with New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW). “The Chinese government can make a huge advance in terms of bridging that divide, in terms of bringing the two sides together, by allowing an independent investigation that all sides can point to as impartial and objective.”
The paper did not say how many of the defendants were Uighurs, however, it reported that more than 170 Uighur and 20 Han lawyers had been assigned, suggesting that the bulk were members of the minority group.
Prosecutors have prepared more than 3,300 items of physical evidence for the trial, including bricks and clubs stained with blood, 91 video clips and more than 2,150 photos, the paper said.
Kine said HRW was concerned that the Urumqi trials “will follow the same abuses of international process that we saw in the trials of suspects detained following the unrest in Tibet in March 2008.”
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
North Korea tested nuclear-capable rocket launchers, state media reported yesterday, a day after Seoul detected the launch of about 10 ballistic missiles. The test comes after South Korean and US forces launched their springtime military drills, due to run until Thursday. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Saturday oversaw the testing of the multiple rocket launcher system (MRLS), the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. The test involved 12 600mm-caliber ultra-precision multiple rocket launchers and two artillery companies, it said. Kim said the drill gave Pyongyang’s enemies, within the 420km striking range, a sense of “uneasiness” and “a deep understanding
North Korea yesterday fired about 10 ballistic missiles to the sea toward Japan, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, days after Pyongyang warned of “terrible consequences” over ongoing South Korea-US military drills. Pyongyang recently dashed hopes of a diplomatic thaw with Seoul, Washington’s security ally, describing its latest peace efforts as a “clumsy, deceptive farce.” Seoul’s military detected “around 10 ballistic missiles launched from the Sunan area in North Korea toward the East Sea [Sea of Japan] at around 1:20pm,” JCS said in a statement, referring to South Korea’s name for the body of water. The missiles
‘UNWAVERING FRIENDSHIP’: A representative of a Japanese group that co-organized a memorial, said he hopes Japanese never forget Taiwan’s kindness President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday marked the 15th anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, urging continued cooperation between Taiwan and Japan on disaster prevention and humanitarian assistance. Lai wrote on social media that Taiwan and Japan have always helped each other in the aftermath of major disasters. The magnitude 9 earthquake struck northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011, triggering a massive tsunami that claimed more than 19,000 lives, according to data from Japanese authorities. Following the disaster, Taiwan donated more than US$240 million in aid, making it one of the largest contributors of financial assistance to Japan. In addition to cash donations and
RSS