Update a few hours later: Violence escalates with 156 dead now.
We have our Muslim Somalis demonstrating at meatpacking plants while China has it Uighers rampaging at toy factories—seems no matter where you are it’s hard for such divergent cultures to work side by side especially when one group appears to be taking jobs from the other ethnic group. Same old story whether its here or in China. Isn’t diversity so beautiful?
From the Times On Line:
Police fought to restore order last night after thousands of members of China’s Muslim Uighur minority rampaged through city streets, burning vehicles and blocking traffic.
At least three people were killed in a rare outburst of violence in Urumqi, the capital of China’s restive westernmost region of Xinjiang, where many Uighurs chafe at Beijing’s rule and the limits imposed on their religion and cultural traditions.
Witnesses said that up to 3,000 rioters went on the rampage, smashing buses and overturning police barricades during several hours of violence.
Thousands of police and anti-riot troops later swept through the city, using teargas and water hoses to disperse crowds. “Now the whole city is on lockdown,” one witness said. The violence flared days after reports of ethnic clashes between Han Chinese and Uighur workers at a toy factory in the southern Guangdong province in which two Uighurs were killed and 188 wounded.
In the late-night brawl at the Early Light toy factory in Shaoguan city, a group of Han Chinese fought with Uighurs who had been recruited to the factory recently. A rumour that Uighur workers had raped two Han Chinese girls brought swift and violent retaliations from the Chinese workers.
Police have now arrested a Han Chinese for rumour-mongering after he was found to have made up the rape report in a fit of anger after losing his job at the plant.
We have heard much about the Uighers at RRW because 17 of them were scheduled to be released from Guantanamo Bay and resettled in the US. Obama got the message that this would be a risky political move and has shuttled them off elsewhere defying the Chinese who wanted their terrorists back. Our Uigher archive is here.