Chinese state media reported that staff at a religious school in predominantly Muslim far western China set off explosives to fend off a police raid and that 12 children were burned. However, an overseas human rights group blamed tear gas used by paramilitary forces for the injuries.
The Tianshan.net news portal for the Xinjiang region said the children were hospitalized after the raid on Wednesday, but did not say how badly they were hurt. Three police and two of the three staff at the school in Hotan City were also injured, it said.
Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the German-based World Uyghur Congress, said the school was teaching the Koran and that paramilitary officers used tear gas on the children.
“Both sides were involved in a clash and then authorities used tear gas causing injuries on both sides,” Dilxat said.
Calls to the Hotan Public Security Bureau rang unanswered. The Tianshan.net report said 54 children were at the school when police raided it.
The Global Times newspaper yesterday quoted Xinjiang government spokesman Hou Hanmin (侯漢敏), as saying the children were between 6 and 10 years old and had been barred from seeing their parents. Hou said upset parents had reported the school to the police.
The report said the school was on the fifth floor of a residential building and that fire destroyed much of the floor.
China allows only a small number of licensed religious schools, mostly at the university level. The government has stepped up a campaign against illegal schools in Xinjiang, a sprawling region that borders Central Asia and is home to millions of largely Muslim ethnic Uighurs who say they have been marginalized by China’s majority Han population.
Last month, courts in Kashgar sentenced nine men to prison terms ranging between six to 15 years for their involvement with illegal religious schools or religious instruction.
The sentences were announced at three separate public hearings in Kashgar on May 31, the Kashgar Daily reported online.
The heaviest sentence, a 15-year jail term, was handed down to Sadike Ku’erban for inciting separatism by spreading “extremist religious thought and inciting others to wage a holy war,” the report said.
It said he ran a network of illegal “home schools” in four different parts of Xinjiang over 10 years that taught 86 students, including 16 under 14 years of age.
An official with the Kashgar Intermediate People’s Court on Wednesday confirmed the trials took place but refused to provide any details. Like many Chinese bureaucrats, he would give only his surname, Zhang.
China allows different faiths to practice their religion but only in state-backed churches and mosques.
Many Uighurs resent Chinese rule and controls on their religion and culture, and the region has occasionally seen violent unrest.
In July 2009, rioting between Uighurs and Han Chinese killed nearly 200 people in Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi.
Uighur activists say the riots, which were followed by retaliatory attacks by members of China’s majority Han ethnic group, were the result of decades of pent-up frustration with Chinese rule.
The government says it has vastly improved living standards in ethnic areas.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
RSS