DTN News: China TODAY September 4, 2009 ~ Fresh Protests In Restive Xinjiang Capital

DTN News: China TODAY September 4, 2009 ~ Fresh Protests In Restive Xinjiang Capital *Source: DTN News / AFP (NSI News Source Info) URUMQI, China - September 4, 2009: The Chinese city of Urumqi was under lockdown after tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets Thursday over mysterious syringe attacks in the capital of restive Xinjiang region. Chinese paramilitary police watch as Chinese gather on the streets of Urumqi in western China's Xinjiang province, Thursday, Sept. 3, 2009. Chinese residents protested deteriorating public safety Thursday after reported syringe attacks in the city where ethnic rioting in July killed nearly 200 people. The streets were deserted apart from several hundred police officers, an AFP reporter said. Many were armed with riot shields and truncheons and some with guns in a forceful response aimed at staving off a second wave of bloodshed following that seen here in July, when nearly 200 people were killed. The police presence was heaviest in the southern half of the city, home to many of the city's Muslim ethnic Uighurs. About two hundred police with several dozen military trucks were camped out in the People's Square. All major roads and highways into Urumqi were closed to traffic and police had ordered residents to stay indoors. The state Xinhua news agency said "tens of thousands of people" had earlier gathered at several locations to protest a series of syringe attacks against members of various ethnic groups. Shops and markets were shuttered. Some Uighurs, who clashed with Han Chinese in July in the worst ethnic unrest to hit the country in decades, were among the protesters who crippled traffic in the city, Xinhua said. "There are about 10-20,000 people and many police in the street at every intersection," a Han woman who runs a local medical clinic told AFP, asking not to be named. "There are more than 100 police stationed every 400-500 metres," she said. "I heard there was a protest yesterday afternoon and I saw it myself today. They shouted, 'Protect our homeland.' Most of them are Han." "The reason for the protest was because people were stabbed by the needles," the woman at the clinic added. The Xinjiang-based Bingtuan Television said authorities had been receiving reports since August 20 of people being attacked with needles, putting the number of assaults at 476. Xinhua said 21 people, whose ethnicity was not disclosed, had been detained after attacking members of nine ethnic groups, including Han Chinese and Uighurs. Four have been arrested for criminal prosecution. No one had been infected or poisoned in the assaults, the agency said, but it remained unclear why attackers used syringes, or what these contained. Regional Communist Party chief Wang Lequan and Urumqi party boss Li Zhi both "called on the crowds, on two separate occasions, to stay calm and show restraint," Xinhua reported. Some witnesses said protesters had shouted slogans against Wang, demanding that he do something to put an end to the needle stabbings. Xinhua said the protests began late Thursday morning when more than 1,000 people gathered in a residential district of Urumqi, and a crowd congregated in another area when a man was caught after allegedly stabbing a child. The demonstration spread to major streets in the city, with some needle-stabbing attacks occurring during the protests. One attacker was caught and police stopped the crowd from beating the person, Xinhua reported. Chinese paramilitary police officers stand guard near the People's Square after they closed down the roads heading to the square in Urumqi, Xinjiang province, China, Friday, Sept. 4, 2009. More than 10,000 people, mostly from the Han Chinese majority, took to the streets Thursday, demanding increased security and punishment for those behind the July riots. Demonstrators said police beat some protesters, but there were no major clashes. "The Han have staged a march so the police imposed controls and ordered us to stay indoors," Halisha, a Uighur eye doctor, said by telephone. A receptionist at an Urumqi hotel said Internet access had been limited throughout the city. Local and regional government officials were not immediately available for comment. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said she had no knowledge of the incident but told reporters at a regular news briefing that China was "competent to safeguard social stability and national unity". Uighurs say the July 5 riots occurred after Urumqi police tried to forcibly break up a peaceful protest over a brawl involving factory workers in distant southern China that state media said left two Uighurs dead. China however has accused exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer, who lives in the United States, of orchestrating the unrest. During a visit to mainly Muslim Xinjiang late last month, President Hu Jintao described those behind the unrest as "separatists" who were "doomed to fail." Kadeer has denied any involvement in the violence. Dilxat Raxit, the Munich-based spokesman of Kadeer's World Uighur Congress, said witnesses had told him that about 10 Uighurs had been beaten and taken to hospital in the latest unrest. A female office worker in downtown Urumqi said the situation in the city had been "very chaotic and especially serious" in the past two days.