140 dead in China unrest
2009-07-06 07:55
Beijing - Rioting in the China's restive far west region of Xinjiang killed 140 people, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Monday.
A brief report from Xinhua news agency gave no more details, and an earlier report had merely said a number of people had died in the riots that swept Urumqi, regional capital of Xinjiang, on Sunday.
The riots and an earlier protest set the Uighur ethnic minority of Xinjiang against security forces.
According to an AFP report, China's state television broadcast dramatic images on Monday of what it said were deadly riots in the capital of the restive Xinjiang region, showing people being attacked and cars being smashed.
China Central Television showed one woman apparently being kicked by two people as she lay on the ground, and a man whose face was covered in blood trying to get up, as unrest swept through Urumqi on Sunday.
The report blamed the violence on members of the Muslim Uighur ethnic group who have long chafed at Chinese rule in Xinjiang.
"This was an incident remotely controlled, directed and incited from abroad, and executed inside the country," the commentator said over the images, echoing a government statement.
"It was a planned and organised violent crime."
CCTV gave no death toll while the state-run Xinhua news agency initially said three "ordinary Han Chinese" people died, but later indicated a policeman was also killed without clarifying the total death toll.
The CCTV report showed protesters throwing stones at police, vehicles on fire, and two young girls with bloodied hands comforting each other.
Footage also showed a crowd of men pushing over a police car, smashing its windows and throwing stones at it.
The report said the violence was orchestrated by Rebiya Kadeer, head of the World Uighur Congress, who now lives in exile in the United States.
But an e-mailed statement from exiled Uighurs citing Kadeer disputed the official version of events, saying that Chinese security forces had over-reacted in quelling peaceful protests by Uighur students.
The television report said calm had now been restored to the city.
The unrest is the latest in more than a year of violence in Xinjiang, home to about eight million Uighurs.
Unrest flared up in the region ahead of and during the Olympics last August. In the deadliest incident, 17 policemen were killed in Kashgar on August 4 in what China said was a "terrorist" attack. - AFP