\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ethnic Uighurs <\/strong>accuse Beijing of marginalising them in favour of Han Chinese migrants\u00a0\u00a0[File: AP]<\/strong><\/p>\n Chinese\u00a0police have arrested more than 10 “hardcore terrorists” who allegedly planned to carry out attacks in the Xinjiang region during unrest between ethnic Uighurs and Han Chinese last year, officials said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Wu Heping, a spokesman for the ministry of public security, said on Thursday\u00a0that the suspects were\u00a0linked to the banned East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM).<\/p>\n “The uncovering of this major terrorist group again proves that the ETIM Wu said that the members\u00a0of ETIM, a banned group that advocates independence for Xinjiang, had\u00a0fled to different parts of China and overseas after last July’s violence.<\/p>\n Although\u00a0he did not\u00a0specify what countries they fled to, he said three of those whose\u00a0arrest was announced on\u00a0Thursday\u00a0were among a group\u00a0of Uighurs deported back to China in December.\u00a0<\/p>\n Cambodia repatriated 20 Uighurs\u00a0in December,\u00a0saying they\u00a0had entered the country illegally, but it was not clear if any of them were those referred to by Wu.<\/p>\n Wu\u00a0did not disclose\u00a0any dates of\u00a0the arrests and\u00a0or any\u00a0reason\u00a0for\u00a0why\u00a0his statement\u00a0was\u00a0issued\u00a0now.\u00a0<\/p>\n ‘Politically motivated’<\/strong><\/p>\n Dilxat Raxit,\u00a0a\u00a0spokesman for the World Uighur Congress, which is based in Europe,\u00a0said the timing of Wu’s announcement was politically motivated.<\/p>\n “Announcing this now just before July 5 [the anniversary of the ethnic\u00a0unrest]\u00a0shows China wants to push the perception that all Uighurs and all Muslims are\u00a0terrorists,” Raxit told the AFP news agency.<\/p>\n Raxit has also told The Associated Press news agency\u00a0that “China associates all Uighur causes with the ETIM, although no one seems to know what this group is or where they are located”.<\/p>\n Among those detained were the group’s alleged ringleaders who\u00a0are accused of launching attacks against against police and paramilitary troops around the time of the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008.<\/p>\n Wu said\u00a0those who\u00a0fled last July\u00a0had subsequently\u00a0travelled through China preaching religious “extremism”, recruiting members, raising funds, and rehearsing further planned attacks.<\/p>\n Xinjiang tensions<\/strong><\/p>\n Simmering tensions between Han Chinese migrants\u00a0and the Turkic-speaking majority Muslim Uighurs over the government’s allegedly discrimnatory policies\u00a0spilled over into violence\u00a0that\u00a0left at least 200 people dead.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, many analysts\u00a0have said that\u00a0ETIM is significantly less\u00a0influential in the western region than the Chinese government suggests.<\/p>\n Nicholas Bequelin, a senior Asia researcher for Human Rights\u00a0Watch and an authority on Xinjiang, said there were some in region advocating violence but that links between individual acts were likely limited.<\/p>\n “It mostly looks like these events [in Kashgar and Kuqa] were the product of very heavy pressure ahead of the Olympic Games prompting people to try and bring attention to the situation in Xinjiang,” he said.<\/p>\n “But it doesn’t mean there is a link behind them, the only link to me is that the government has a theory that it faces separatist, extremist, terrorist groups and lumps it all together to make it look like it’s a conspiracy.”<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 Ethnic Uighurs accuse Beijing of marginalising them in favour of Han Chinese migrants\u00a0\u00a0[File: AP] Chinese\u00a0police have arrested more than 10 “hardcore terrorists” who allegedly planned to carry out attacks in the Xinjiang region during unrest between ethnic Uighurs and Han Chinese last year, officials said.\u00a0 Wu Heping, a spokesman for the ministry of public […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":24668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[146],"tags":[1856,1804,370,3177],"class_list":["post-20078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-china","tag-east-turkestan","tag-east-turkistan","tag-uighurs","tag-uyghur"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nand other terrorist organisations constitute the gravest terrorist threat
\nthat our nation faces at this present time and in the future,” Wu said at a news conference.<\/p>\n\n\n
\n IN depth<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n \n \n\n
\n \u00a0<\/th>\n 101 East:<\/strong> China’s Uighur dilemma<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n \u00a0<\/td>\n Uighur leader speaks out<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n \u00a0<\/td>\n Warning over Uighur executions<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n \u00a0<\/td>\n China executes Uighur activist<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n