A warning about an increase of violence in north-western China

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) demands independent investigations regarding a police operation in north-western China, during which – according to eyewitness reports – up to 26 Muslim Uyghurs and one police officer got killed. The incident occurred on August 20, but had not become known until now. The police had opened fire upon the Uyghurs near the town of Yilkiqi (Kashgar district, autonomous region of Xinjiang).

"The deaths of so many Uyghurs will lead to a more intense circle of violence in the conflict region if the reasons for the police deployment are not disclosed," warned the STP's Asia consultant, Ulrich Delius, in Göttingen on Monday. The Chinese authorities mentioned an anti-terrorist operation but gave no further details concerning the victims. A police official justified the forceful action by stating that knives and axes had been found on the Uyghurs and that it was "terrorists" who had been eliminated. However, inhabitants of nearby Yilkiqi stated that the Uyghurs had gone to pray in the desert, where they encircled and shot dead by the police. There were no survivors – and the victims were not even transferred to the village, but had been buried by bulldozers on the spot.

"If the reports of the villagers are true, a massacre was committed without any legal basis in Chinese law," said Delius. "The background of the murder must now be disclosed urgently!" Every attack led by the security forces causes new individual attackers to turn against police forces or Han Chinese even with fruit- or bread-knives. In July 2013, the authorities in Xinjang had therefore banned kitchen knives with blades longer than 15 centimeters.

In East Turkestan – which is what the Muslim Uyghurs call their home ground – the violence has increased significantly during the year 2013. At the end of June, up to 46 people got killed in the district of Turpan, when Uyghurs attacked police stations as a consequence of two Uyghurs being shot dead by police officers without any further investigations by the authorities. In Hotan district, 5 Uyghurs had been killed during the same month. The police had opened fire on a group of protesters who had called for a release of several detained religious leaders and demanded the reopening of a mosque that had been closed down by the authorities. On August 7, three more Uyghurs were shot dead by the police in Aksu district during a prayer ceremony on occasion of the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.