Family letters against Kadeer authentic: official
- Source: Global Times
- [01:59 August 04 2009]
- Comments
Pan noted that the “deceptive and distorted propaganda of separatists” could only serve to confuse overseas Uygurs, who are not very familiar with China.
“Rebiya is so selfish that she held the whole Xinjiang region hostage in order to achieve her own political goals,” said Zhao Guojun, an expert on international issues at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. “Rebiya is using every means to force the international community to blame China. However, what she did bring is harm to her hometown, especially to tourism.”
Although the International Grand Bazaar, a tourist attraction in Urumqi, has reopened to the public after being closed for weeks following the riot, the city has seen significantly fewer tourists.
“I used to be able to earn at least 5,000 yuan ($735) a day; now I make much less as business becomes so slow,” said Nurguli, a 37-year-old Uygur woman who sells souvenirs in the bazaar.
He Xingliang, a professor of religion and cultural issues at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said Xinjiang would not become “a new Chechnya,” as the ethnic construction of China is very different from that of the former Soviet Union, which was quickly formed by a union of different nations.
“Xingjiang has been a part of China in history,” He said. “The blind obedience of some Uygurs to the ‘ethnic-State’ theory has caused the fanaticism, which is used as a tool by separatists.”
A further 319 people, the majority Uighers, have been arrested in Urumqi in connection with the riots at the beginning of July, Bloomberg said. Before, 53 people were detained, since hundreds of rioters attacked civilians, smashed businesses and set fire to buses in Urumqi on July 5, leaving at least 197 dead and more than 1,600 injured.
In another development, police forces and State security agencies have prevented five organized terrorist attacks on civilians in Xinjiang, China’s anti-terrorism sources said yesterday. The plots were foiled in Urumqi, Kashgar, Aksu and Ili, officials said.
Zhang Shengjun, an expert on international politics at Beijing Normal University, said that it’s horrifying that Rebiya sacrificed her compatriots’ lives to meet her own interests.
“She is definitely a terrorist, as it’s a modus operandi for the terrorists to gain sympathy by sacrificing their own compatriots,” Zhang told the Global Times yesterday.
Following the recent withdrawal of three Chinese films from the 58th Melbourne International Film Festival, another four Chinese films pulled out to protest the screening of a documentary about Kadeer, Xinhua said yesterday.
Zhang Han, An Baijie, Yu Miao and Zhou Min contributed to this story
