CALM WAS returning slowly to Urumqi yesterday after days of protests by ethnic Han Chinese angry at what they see as insufficient protection in the face of aggression by native, largely Muslim Uighurs.
The protests last week, which left five dead and brought fresh chaos to the streets of Urumqi, in Xinjiang province, were set off by a strange series of syringe attacks against Han Chinese by assailants believed to be Uighurs.
Urumqi has been in a state of high alert since ethnic riots in early July between the majority Han Chinese and the Uighurs. The government has said nearly 200 were killed in those clashes, mostly Han Chinese.
Li Zhi, the head of Urumqi’s Communist Party, became the most senior ranking official yet to lose his job over the way the riots in July were handled.
Protesters called this week for the resignation of Wang Lequan, Xinjiang party secretary, and some believe he may yet lose his job over the way in which the July protests in Urumqi – where Han and Uighur had previously co-existed peacefully – were allowed to escalate. Mr Wang is a member of China’s ruling Politburo, and an ally of President Hu Jintao.
Mr Wang is being blamed for not providing adequate protection over the syringe attacks. The attacks were blamed on Muslim separatists on Friday, and propaganda trucks on the streets broadcast that these attacks were part of a terror plot, although no evidence of this was given.
Xinjiang police have detained 25 suspects – two of them jabbed a taxi driver with a heroin-filled syringe and stole 710 yuan (€72) to buy drugs, the police said. No motive was given for the other attacks. One young Uighur confessed to sticking a pin in a woman’s buttocks at a fruit stall.
Over 500 people have sought treatment for stabbings, while about 100 showed signs of having been pricked by needles.
Meanwhile, a Taiwanese film festival is to screen a documentary about the life of exiled Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer, who has been accused by Beijing of inciting the violence in July.
The 10 Conditions of Love will be shown next month at the festival in Kaohsiung city, and looks certain to be opposed by China, which protested to the Australian government last month when Ms Kadeer attended a festival in Melbourne that screened the film.
Warmer ties across the Strait of Taiwan were put under strain last week when the Dalai Lama visited survivors of Typhoon Morakot in southern Taiwan.