The 2008 Uyghur unrest is a loose name for incidents of communal violence by Uyghur people in Hotan and Qaraqash county of Western China, with incidents in March, April, and August 2008. The protests were spurred by the death in police custody of Mutallip Hajim.
The authorities attribute most of unrest activities of the last years to groups like the Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami (Islamic Party of Liberation) or the East Turkestan Islamic Movement. [1]
According to reports, on 18 March 2008, an/a Uyghur woman detonated a bomb on a city bus in Urumqi, escaping before the explosion. While officials denied the incident, the International Herald Tribune reported of residents confirming the bombing. [2] Many businesses belonging to those that belong to the Muslim ethnic group Hui were destroyed by the separatist group.
On 23 March 2008, Muslim Uyghurs held anti-government protests in the far western region of Xinjiang, China. Chinese officials blamed separatists inspired by the 2008 Tibetan unrest. Demonstrators took to the streets at the weekly bazaar in Hotan. The authorities maintain tight controls on information from the area and reports of deaths or their denial could not be independently verified. [3]
Demonstrations followed the death in custody of a wealthy Uyghur jade trader and philanthropist, Mutallip Hajim, 38. The protesters, who according to several accounts numbered around 600, began their march at the Lop bus station. An unknown number of men joined their 2 km (1.2 mi) march to the Big Bazaar shopping area, where they were surrounded by police who arrested around 400. [4] The New York Times reported that the demonstrators were hoisting banners and shouting pro-independence slogans before the police forces moved in. [5]
On 23 March and 24 March 2008, as many as 1,000 people in Hotan and Karakax County took to the streets in protest. The protests coincided with unrest in Tibet, but the motivations appeared to be local. One issue that reportedly brought locals to the streets in protest was a government ban on women wearing headscarfs. Another issue was the death of Mutallip Hajim. Alim Seytoff, head of the World Uyghur Congress, stated that, "The Uighurs began protesting after the killing of Mutallip Hajim, who had died in police custody." [6] This claim was echoed by unnamed sources in a Radio Free Asia report. [7] Local police and the government run religious affairs department refused to comment on Hajim's death when contacted by Agence France-Presse. [6]
Police arrested 70 people from Uyghur ethnic group in the Silk Road oasis city of Kashgar on 3 April, fearing trouble when the Olympic torch passes through the city in June, The Guardian reported. [8]
Residents of townships and villages near Gulja, a city in northwestern Xinjiang, said that about 25 Uyghurs were arrested on 4 April on a tip that people in the area were making bombs. [2]
On 4 August 2008, two men attacked a police post near the city of Kashgar. They threw two improvised explosive devices and attacked at the police with knives. According to the government news agency, 16 policemen died and another 16 were injured. [9]
On 10 August 2008, in the oasis town of Kuqa, a series of explosions and shootings were reported. The explosions occurred at various police stations and office buildings. The events claimed 12 deaths, ten of which were of the attackers themselves. [10] [11]
On 12 August 2008, unidentified men assaulted civilian guards with knives in Yamanya Town, leaving three dead and one critically injured. [12]
On 28 August 2008, a group of policemen were attacked by six to seven attackers with knives in the town of Qizilboy in Payzawat County, resulting in the death two ethnic Uyghur police officers and at least two other policemen were critically injured. According to the deputy Peyzawat county police chief, Omerjan, the police officers who are all ethnic Uyghurs who were searching a cornfield following a tip that a woman suspected of aiding assailants in the Yamanya attack was hiding there. [13]
East Turkestan or East Turkistan, also called Uyghuristan, is a loosely-defined geographical region in the northwestern part of the People's Republic of China, which varies in meaning by context and usage. The term was coined in the 19th century by Russian Turkologists, including Nikita Bichurin, who intended the name to replace the common Western term for the region, "Chinese Turkestan", which referred to the Tarim Basin in Southern Xinjiang or Xinjiang as a whole during the Qing dynasty. Beginning in the 17th century, Altishahr, which means "Six Cities" in Uyghur, became the Uyghur name for the Tarim Basin. Uyghurs also called the Tarim Basin "Yettishar," which means "Seven Cities," and even "Sekkizshahr", which means "Eight Cities" in Uyghur. Chinese dynasties from the Han dynasty to the Tang dynasty had called an overlapping area the "Western Regions".
The Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) is a Uyghur Islamic extremist organization founded in Pakistan by Hasan Mahsum. Its stated goals are to establish an Islamic state in Xinjiang and Central Asia.
The East Turkestan independence movement is a political movement that seeks the independence of East Turkestan, a large and sparsely-populated region in northwest China, as a nation state for the Uyghur people. The region is currently administered by the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Within the movement, there is widespread support for the region to be renamed, since "Xinjiang" is seen by independence activists as a colonial name. "East Turkestan" is the best-known proposed name as it is the historical geographic name of the region and the name of the two independent states that briefly existed in the region in the first half of the 20th century.
The East Turkestan Liberation Organization (ETLO) was a secessionist Uyghur organization that advocated for an independent Uyghur state named East Turkestan in the Western Chinese province known as Xinjiang. The organization was established in Turkey in late 1997 to fight against the Chinese government in Xinjiang, a territory of ethnic Uyghur majority.
Hasan Mahsum, also known as Abu-Muhammad al-Turkestani and Ashan Sumut, was an Uyghur militant who was the leader of the Turkistan Islamic Party, an Islamic extremist group suspected of having ties with Al Qaeda. He was shot dead in a counter-terrorism operation on October 2, 2003 by the Pakistani Army.
Terrorism in China refers to the use of terrorism to cause a political or ideological change in the People's Republic of China. The definition of terrorism differs among scholars, between international and national bodies and across time and there is no legally binding definition internationally. In the cultural setting of China, the term is relatively new and ambiguous.
Mutallip Hajim was a prominent Uyghur businessman and philanthropist from the Xinjiang province in western China, who died while in police custody.
The 2008 Kashgar attack occurred on the morning of 4 August 2008, in the city of Kashgar in the Western Chinese province of Xinjiang. According to Chinese government sources, it was a terrorist attack perpetrated by two men with suspected ties to the Uyghur separatist movement. The men reportedly drove a truck into a group of jogging police officers, and proceeded to attack them with grenades and machetes, resulting in the death of sixteen officers.
The Ghulja, Gulja, or Yining incident was the culmination of the Ghulja protests of 1997, a series of demonstrations in the city of Yining—known as Ghulja in Uyghur—in the Xinjiang autonomous region of China.
A series of violent riots over several days broke out on 5 July 2009 in Ürümqi, the capital city of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), in northwestern China. The first day's rioting, which involved at least 1,000 Uyghurs, began as a protest, but escalated into violent attacks that mainly targeted Han people. According to Chinese state media, a total of 197 people died, most of whom were Han people or non-Muslim minorities, with 1,721 others injured and many vehicles and buildings destroyed. Many Uyghurs disappeared during wide-scale police sweeps in the days following the riots; Human Rights Watch (HRW) documented 43 cases and said figures for real disappearances were likely to be much higher.
The World Uyghur Congress (WUC) is a US funded international organization of exiled Uyghur groups that claims to "represent the collective interest of the Uyghur people" both inside and outside of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. The World Uyghur Congress claims to be a nonviolent and peaceful movement that opposes what it considers to be the Chinese occupation of East Turkestan (Xinjiang) and advocates rejection of totalitarianism, religious intolerance and terrorism as an instrument of policy. It has been called the "largest representative body of Uyghurs around the world" and uses more moderate methods of human rights advocacy to influence the Chinese government within the international community in contrast to more radical Uyghur organizations.
The 2011 Hotan attack was a bomb-and-knife attack that occurred in Hotan, Xinjiang, China on 18 July 2011. According to witnesses, the assailants were a group of 18 young Uyghur men who opposed the local government's campaign against the burqa, which had grown popular among older Hotan women in 2009 but were also used in a series of violent crimes. The men occupied a police station on Nuerbage Street at noon, killing two security guards with knives and bombs and taking eight hostages. The attackers then yelled religious slogans, including ones associated with Jihadism, as they replaced the Chinese flag on top of a police station with another flag, the identity of which is disputed.
The 2011 Kashgar attacks were a series of knife and bomb attacks in Kashgar, Xinjiang, China on July 30 and 31, 2011. On July 30, two Uyghur men hijacked a truck, killed its driver, and drove into a crowd of pedestrians. They got out of the truck and stabbed six people to death and injured 27 others. One of the attackers was killed by the crowd; the other was brought into custody. On July 31, a chain of two explosions started a fire at a downtown restaurant. A group of armed Uyghur men killed two people inside of the restaurant and four people outside, injuring 15 other people. Police shot five suspects dead, detained four, and killed two others who initially escaped arrest.
The Pishan hostage crisis occurred on the night of December 28, 2011, in Koxtag, Pishan/Guma County, Hotan Prefecture, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. A group of 15 ethnic Uyghur youths kidnapped two goat shepherds for directions near the Indian and Pakistan borders. They were soon confronted by a group of five Pishan policemen, who tried to negotiate for the shepherds' release. This led to a shootout in which a police officer and 7 hostage-takers were killed. Another police officer was injured, and 4 suspects were taken into custody. Both of the hostages were rescued by police.
Tianjin Airlines Flight 7554 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight between Hotan and Ürümqi in China's Xinjiang Autonomous Region. On 29 June 2012, an Embraer E190 operating the flight, took off from Hotan at 12:25 pm; within ten minutes, six ethnic Uyghur men, one of whom allegedly professed his motivation as jihad, announced their intent to hijack the aircraft, according to multiple witnesses. In response, passengers and crew resisted and successfully restrained the hijackers, who were armed with aluminium crutches and explosives.
The 2012 Yecheng attack was a terrorist attack by Uyghur separatist extremists that occurred on February 28, 2012, in Yecheng, Xinjiang, a remote town situated about 150 miles from China's border with Pakistan. Details of the attack are disputed: according to Chinese government reports and court documents, at around 6 p.m. that day, a group of eight Uyghur men led by religious extremist Abudukeremu Mamuti attacked pedestrians with axes and knives on Happiness Road. Local police fought with the attackers, ultimately killing all and capturing Mamuti. State-run media reported that one police officer died and four police were injured, while 15 pedestrians died from Mamuti's assault and 14 more civilians were injured. Chinese officials characterized the event as a "terrorist attack."
The Xinjiang conflict, also known as the East Turkistan conflict, Uyghur–Chinese conflict or Sino-East Turkistan conflict, is an ethnic geopolitical conflict in what is now China's far-northwest autonomous region of Xinjiang, also known as East Turkistan. It is centred around the Uyghurs, a Turkic ethnic group who constitute a plurality of the region's population.
On 26 June 2013, rioting broke out in Shanshan County, in the autonomous region of Xinjiang, China. 35 people died in the riots, including 22 civilians, two police officers and eleven attackers.
On the early morning of Wednesday, 30 July 2014, Juma Tahir, the imam of China's largest mosque, the Id Kah Mosque in northwestern Kashgar, was stabbed to death by three young male Uyghur extremists. Religious leaders across denominations condemned the attack.
The 2015 Aksu colliery attack, also known as the Baicheng incident took place on 18 September 2015, when a group of separatists, suspected to be Uyghurs, attacked workers and security guards at a coal mine in Baicheng County in Aksu, Xinjiang, leaving at least 16 dead and 18 wounded according to government sources, with other estimates reaching as high as 50 dead and 50 wounded. When local police arrived at the scene, the attackers rammed the police's vehicles with stolen trucks before fleeing into the mountains. The majority of the victims of the attack were members of the Han ethnic group.
