Unprecedented demonstrations by ethnic Mongols upset with Chinese rule show no signs of abating and plans for further protests are circulating on social media sites, an overseas rights group said.
The protests, which began on Monday in Inner Mongolia, have continued all week in the Xilingol region and calls have been issued for daily protests in coming days, the Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center said.
The unrest in the region was sparked by the May 10 death of a Mongol herder who was run over by a truck driven by a Han Chinese, the US-based center has said.
China is home to an estimated 6 million ethnic Mongols who have cultural and linguistic links with the Republic of Mongolia to the north.
The herder’s death inflamed long-simmering Mongol opposition to what is widely viewed as Chinese political and cultural oppression, as well as encroachment on traditional pasture lands by Han mining and energy interests.
Many ethnic Mongols in Inner Mongolia complain their plight has been overshadowed internationally by Tibet and Xinjiang, despite similar grievances against Chinese authorities.
Mongols in the region said by telephone they are also upset over the disappearance of Hada, China’s most prominent ethnic Mongol dissident.
Hada completed a 15-year jail term in December, but his supporters say that he and his wife Xinna and their son Uiles have since disappeared into the custody of authorities.
A schedule for further protests over the coming week is being widely circulated among Mongols through social media sites, said an ethnic Mongol, who asked not to be named.
The Mongolian rights group said the calls were urging “all Mongols to inform each other to take to the streets to defend the lands and rights of the Mongols.”
Demonstrations were held again on Thursday in two locations in the vast region’s Xilingol area where the herder’s death occurred, the group said in a report on its Web site.
It posted pictures showing crowds of mostly Mongol youths holding banners and marching through the streets of the Left Ujumchin Banner and the Huveet Shar Banner. A banner is a local district.
Chinese government authorities in the two areas either refused comment or were unreachable yesterday.
The Mongolian rights group said the protesters’ banners bore slogans such as “Defend the rights of Mongols” and “Defend the homeland.”
The actions are almost certain to draw a strict security response by Chinese authorities who, unsettled by the recent unrest in the Arab world, are already in the midst of a broad nationwide crackdown on dissent.
Tibet and Xinjiang remain under tight security after anger at Chinese rule burst into violent unrest by their Tibetan and Uighur minorities in the two regions in 2008 and 2009 respectively.
The herder who died, named Mergen, had been among a group of Mongols that blocked a caravan of coal-hauling trucks in Xilingol, the Mongolian rights group said.
They had been angered by an influx of miners that had displaced herders, destroyed grazing lands and killed livestock.
The Xilingol government has said four people were arrested over the killing and the destruction of pasture lands.
Rights groups say Hada has become the victim of an enforced disappearance by police skittish over his potential to rally Mongol anger.
One of China’s longest-jailed prisoners of conscience, Hada fell foul of authorities through writings in which he called for Mongol autonomy and for organizing peaceful demonstrations as head of the underground Southern Mongolian Democracy Alliance.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Russian hackers last year targeted a Dutch public facility in the first such an attack on the lowlands country’s infrastructure, its military intelligence services said on Monday. The Netherlands remained an “interesting target country” for Moscow due to its ongoing support for Ukraine, its Hague-based international organizations, high-tech industries and harbors such as Rotterdam, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) said in its yearly report. Last year, the MIVD “saw a Russian hacker group carry out a cyberattack against the digital control system of a public facility in the Netherlands,” MIVD Director Vice Admiral Peter Reesink said in the 52-page
RSS