Chinese rights activists voiced alarm on the Internet over rising discrimination against ethnic Uighurs in the wake of a deadly attack at a Chinese train station that the government has blamed on militants from the western region of Xinjiang.
Top Chinese officials have noted mounting anxiety and resentment between the country’s majority Han Chinese and Muslim Uighurs from Xinjiang since an attack in Kunming on March 1 left 29 people dead and injured about 140.
Online accounts describe growing intolerance toward Uighurs across China, ranging from evictions from apartments to taxi drivers refusing to pick them up. After the train station attack, Reuters reporters saw signs in restaurants and hotels in Kunming saying Uighurs were unwelcome.
Rights activists have taken to social networks to decry the reported abuses and challenge the characterization of Uighurs as dangerous or extremist.
“Because of the Internet we can learn about the many instances of Uighurs facing discrimination, from being unable to stay in hotels and having their street stalls chased away to being accused of being terrorists,” prominent dissident Hu Jia (胡佳) said.
While more than 100 people, including several Chinese policemen, have been killed in unrest in Xinjiang since April last year, the slaughter at the train station in Kunming was one of the worst single acts of what the Chinese government has called militant violence.
Beijing has not explicitly accused Uighurs, but referred to the perpetrators as Xinjiang extremists.
China accuses armed Uighur groups of having links to Central Asian and Pakistani Islamist militants, and of carrying out attacks to establish an independent state called East Turkistan.
There is no evidence or even suspicion from official channels that Uighur militants may be linked to the disappearance of a Malaysian Airlines flight over the weekend.
However, conjecture about their involvement by some on China’s Sina Weibo microblog raised alarm among many other users.
“This will only deepen ethnic misunderstanding and make Uighurs’ plight more difficult,” said Li Fangping 李方平), a human rights lawyer representing Uighur academic Ilham Tohti, who has championed Uighur rights and is facing separatism charges.
The US, EU and international rights groups have demanded the release of Tohti.
Advocates of Tohti say he has challenged official versions of several incidents involving Uighurs, including one in Tiananmen Square in October last year, that China says was its first major suicide attack.
His case is a sign of the Chinese government’s hardening stance on dissent in Xinjiang, where Uighurs make up less than 50 percent of the population.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS