China arrests 1,434 following riots

Jul 7 2009

Police have arrested 1,434 suspects in connection with the worst ethnic violence in decades in China's western Xinjiang region, which killed at least 156 people.

The arrests come amid a security clampdown on the region.

Hundreds of paramilitary police with shields, rifles and clubs took control of the streets of the capital, Urumqi, where the riots took place on Sunday.

The violence does not bode well for China's efforts to mollify long-simmering ethnic tensions between the minority Uighur people and the ethnic Han Chinese in Xinjiang -- a sprawling region that shares borders with Pakistan, Afghanistan and other Central Asian countries.

The mobile phone service and the social networking site Twitter have been blocked. Internet links were cut or slowed down.

A non-violent protest by 200 people was broken up in a second city, Kashgar, and the official Xinhua News Agency said police had evidence that demonstrators were trying to organise more unrest in Kashgar, Yili and Aksu.

It said police had raided several groups plotting unrest in Dawan township in Urumqi, as well as at a former racecourse that is now home to a transient population.

The unrest in Urumqi began on Sunday after up to 3,000 protesters gathered at the People's Square and protested about the June 25 deaths of Uighur factory workers killed in a riot in southern China.

Xinhua said two died; other sources put the figure higher.

Many Uighurs haven't been wooed by the rapid economic development. Some want independence, while others feel they're being marginalised in their homeland.