Official media in Xinjiang reports 29 suspected terrorists have been detained as part of crackdown in the home of the mostly Muslim Uygur minority
Ilham Tohti was sentenced to life in prison.Forty “rioters” were killed in the mainland's far-western Xinjiang region after a series of explosions last Sunday, the regional government said. Residents describe heavy security in place days after the violence.
Six civilians, two police officers and two auxiliary police were also killed in the attacks in Xinjiang’s Luntai county, with 54 civilians injured, the regional government’s news site Tianshan said late on Thursday.
Two "rioters" were captured, it added, while the main suspect, whose name was given as Mamat Tursun, was shot dead.
The violence took place just two days before the sentencing of prominent Muslim Uygur scholar Ilham Tohti, who was on trial on charges of separatism.
Government media had previously only said that two people had been killed in the incident. The government controls access to the region, and information is difficult to verify. Such a delay in the release of details is not uncommon.
Staff at hotels in Luntai county described a continuing heavy security presence. "Security forces are still in the street," said one receptionist. A woman who answered the phone at another inn also gave an account of security out in force, and that business had suffered as "lots of people don’t come these days".
Tohti, 44, a former university professor who has been critical of Beijing’s policies in the vast western region, was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday. The United States, the European Union, and several human rights groups have called for him to be released. His prosecution risks silencing moderate Uygur voices and cutting off the possibility of dialogue, analysts say.
Critics also warned his conviction could add to tensions in the area. The Global Times, a newspaper run by People’s Daily, said Tohti’s case should be seen as warning to anyone trying to break China apart. "Chinese separatists must be fully aware of the red line drawn by the Chinese constitution and criminal law," it said. "Tohti could serve as a lesson for them to realise what price they have to pay if they continue their dangerous pace."
The Tianshan report said the "organised and serious" attack caused four explosions on Sunday evening, targeting two police stations, an outdoor market and a shop.
Among the 54 civilians injured were 32 members of the mostly Muslim Uygur ethnic group and 22 people of Han descent.
The 40 "rioters" killed had either blown themselves up or were shot dead by police, Tianshan said. Police said that Mamat Tursun, the alleged ringleader of Sunday’s attack, had been “gradually developing into an extremist” since 2003 and had “called on other people to join his terrorist group when working on construction projects”, saidl Xinhua. In the past year, escalating violence between locals and security forces in Xinjiang – the traditional homeland of the Uygurs – has claimed more than 200 lives and prompted Beijing to launch a security crackdown.
Among the most shocking attacks was a May assault on a market in the regional capital Urumqi, where more than 30 people were killed, and a deadly rampage by knife-wielding assailants at a train station at Kunming in the southwest in March, which left 29 dead.
Beijing blames ongoing unrest in the region on organised terrorists seeking independence from China, while rights groups say cultural and religious repression of Uygurs has stoked violence.
The supreme court on Sunday distributed new wide-ranging guidelines on prosecuting terrorism cases. “Making and showing banners and other material of religious extremism will be criminalised,” Xinhua said in a summary of the regulations. The court also said that the use of insults such as “religious traitor” and ”heretic” could lead to criminal conviction.
Xinjiang, a resource-rich region which abuts Central Asia, is home to about 10 million Uygurs, who mostly follow Sunni Islam.