The most that Americans will know about the Uighurs is that recently some of them have been released from Guantanamo Bay so a quick background is necessary.
The Uighurs come from Xingjiang province in the extreme west of China. Like Tibet to its immediate south, the central government has encouraged many ethnic Han Chinese to move into the capital, Urumqi, in an attempt to change its nature to a uniform "Chinese" character. Like Tibet there is an independence movement and the government persists in its fantasy that there is inter-communal harmony. In reality, the Uighurs are all treated as potential terrorists.
The source of this Sunday's riots and killings appear to have arisen after cellphone images of lynched Uighurs were sent back from Guangdong province in the East where they were working in toy factories. Apparently false allegations of rape had been made resulting in Han attacks on Uighurs.
Note: the only western journalists in the province are from the Guardian. They are also providing reports to feed Channel 4 News in the UK. Other news organizations are forced to rely on their reports or official statements. CNN is particularly bad at this, apparently relying on the press releases and a few telephone calls from Beijing for its information. Al Jazeera has some very useful backgroung information to explain the basis of the unrest, including this from "China's other Tibet" from, I believe, last year. I have reformatted it for easier reading.
The region is of value to China due to "a very complicated mixture of political, economic and psychological reasons," says Dillon.
Among these, he says, are Xinjiang's bountiful natural resources and raw materials, and its strategic position buffering China from Russia. But he adds, there is also the idea that "if Beijing doesn’t retain Xinjiang, it's a question of losing face, because Xinjiang is part of the motherland." On top of that, Xinjiang also boasts something clearly lacking in the rest of China - space.
Accounting for one sixth of China's total area, Xinjiang not only produces 30 per cent of China’s cotton, but between the 1960s and mid-1990s it was also used as the test site for China's nuclear weapons.
Perhaps most unpopular with the Uighurs though is the use of their land to resettle huge numbers of Han from the overpopulated east of China.
The report details the increasing racism by the incoming Han to favor their own and to block jobs for the Uighurs. In turn of course the Uighurs are forced to seek work in the factories in the far East of China.
The largest outside organization, the World Uighur Congress, is led by exiled businesswoman Rebiya Kadeer who, like the Dalai Lama, is regularly accused of formenting any protests against Han hegenomy. They explain that last week's lynching of two Uighurs in Guangdong and central government inaction led to the protests. What seems to have started as a peaceful protest appears to have been met with the type of brutal crackdown we saw in Tibet following by full scale violence against the hated Han.
Central China TV International news at 19.00 GMT led on a visit by the Italian philandering pedophile oligarch Prime Minister to boost bi-lateral trade. The second lead were the "rioters" and that the situation was "under control" according to officials. The only violence shown was against the Han however as the Guardian points out, Uighurs and other ethnic minorities were injured yet only ethnic Han patients and doctors were shown. It of course alleged that the World Uighur Congress had organized the riots, dismissing the Guangdong incident as a "brawl". end with a series of allegations dating back to 2007 of "terrorist gangs" and training camps.
The Guardian also reports that the riots spread to the second city, Kashgar. The Guardian reports the sort of crackdown on communications we are familar with from China when it wishes to suppress reports.
The size of the security cordon last night meant that few outside the area had any idea of the scale of the violence and destruction, although rumours about what had happened swept the city in the absence of real information.
Residents claimed access to the internet had been blocked across the whole of Xinjiang. Foreign phone numbers were inaccessible and mobile phone reception sporadic — blamed by citizens on the clampdown.
Sadly, it very much looks like the problems of China's "autonomous" regions will continue to cause repression and death.