Muslim protest turns violent

2009-07-05 19:17

Beijing - A protest in China's restive Muslim far west turned violent on Sunday, state media reported and activists said police fired shots in the air and used batons to disperse a crowd that had swelled to nearly 1 000.

The protest in the city of Urumqi was a rare mass demonstration in the Xinjiang province, a region that has seen occasional separatist violence against Chinese rule.

More than 300 people, mostly members of the largely Muslim Uighur ethnic group, had gathered to demand an investigation into a brawl between Uighur and Han Chinese workers at a toy factory in southern China on June 25, said Gulinisa Maimaiti, a 32-year-old employee of a foreign company who took part in the protest.

Interrupted traffic

Two reportedly died in last month's factory melee in southern Guangdong province, but Gulisina said protesters believed the real figure was higher.

Accounts of what happened differed, but the violence seemed to have started when the crowd refused to disperse.

The government's Xinhua News Agency said the crowd attacked passers-by, torched vehicles and interrupted traffic on some roads. Xinhua said police were at the scene trying to maintain order, but the report did not provide details.

Gulinisa said police pinned protesters to the ground before taking some 40 protesters away.

"The police fired shots into the sky. They took people away in cars," he said.

Visible presence

Tensions between Uighurs and Chinese are never far from the surface in Xinjiang, China's vast Central Asian buffer province.

Uighur separatists have waged a sporadic campaign for independence in recent decades, and the military, armed police and riot squads maintain a visible presence in the region.

After a few years of relative calm, separatist violence picked up last year with attacks against border police and bombings of government buildings.

- SAPA