Authorities in Xinjiang are telling people who want to watch the Olympic torch as it passes through the area to stay at home and tune into the TV instead.
Spectators, who in other parts of China have thronged streets to get a glimpse of the torch, were also banned from climbing trees or collecting on bridges under which the flame will pass, state media said yesterday.
The steps are a measure of the sensitivity which surrounds Xinjiang, which is home to 8 million Muslim Uighurs, some of whom Beijing blames for a series of attacks in the name of agitating for an independent state.
“Considering that too many people will cause a lack of safety, we are recommending that everyone watches on the television from home,” the official Xinjiang Daily quoted the Chinese Communist Party boss of the region’s sports administration, Li Guangming, as saying.
“The government expects tens of thousands of people will shout encouragement on the streets who have come in groups with their work units,” Li said.
The torch will be paraded through Urumqi today before heading to the mainly Uighur city of Kashgar, not far from the Pakistan and Afghanistan frontier.
A three-day tour of Tibet was supposed to precede this leg but the schedule was altered after a three-day suspension for the Sichuan earthquake. A curtailed trip to the Himalayan region will now follow after the torch leaves Xinjiang, organizers said.
Other newspapers warned that “uncivilized behavior” would be “appropriately dealt with.”
“Do not shout slogans that damage the image of the nation or of the city,” the Urumqi Evening News said, outlining a long list of behavior that was similarly banned, including not taking pets along to look at the spectacle or setting off fireworks.
Foreign reporters covering the event have likewise been warned to behave in the event of a protest along or near the route, euphemistically referred to as a “sudden incident.”
“If foreign reporters cover a sudden incident, they will be subject to site safety management instructions and ... should follow the advice of security personnel on the spot,” a handbook reads, without elaborating.
Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the exiled World Uyghur Congress, said China was using the Olympics as an excuse to further crack down on his people.
“Uighurs are still living in a culture of fear, facing persecution, marginalization and assimilation that erode the very core of cultural identity, religious belief and economic rights of Uighurs,” he said in an e-mailed statement.
Meanwhile, the People’s Daily reported yesterday that Beijing has appointed a one of its top terrorism experts as a vice public security minister in anticipation of Olympic-related threats.
Yang Xuanning has extensive experience in central government bodies dedicated to neutralizing government critics and perceived opponents in the restive western regions and managing China’s often cloudy international image, the newspaper said.
Beijing has called terrorism the single biggest threat to the Games.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
At a calligraphy class in Hanoi, Hoang Thi Thanh Huyen slides her brush across the page to form the letters and tonal marks of Vietnam’s unique modern script, in part a legacy of French colonial rule. The history of romanized Vietnamese, or Quoc Ngu, links the arrival of the first Christian missionaries, colonization by the French and the rise to power of the Communist Party of Vietnam. It is now reflected in the country’s “bamboo diplomacy” approach of seeking strength through flexibility, or looking to stay on good terms with the world’s major powers. A month after Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) visited,
RSS