The Urumqi Massacre
It was a peaceful protest by Uyghur students in Urumqi. But China turned it into a massacre. More details in this report by Ali Khalaf and Saleha Farouq. Narrator: It was July 5th, 2009 when the Chines authorities cut off Urumqi from the rest of the world. It was the world’s longest-running ban on Internet, phones and texting. It was to hide what the Chinese Communists were doing to Uyghurs in the city. Urumqi is the capital city of East Turkestan which the Chinese call Xinjiang. Xinjiang essentially means a new colony. Urumqi used to be a Uighur majority town. Communist Chinese however settled Chinese here turning Uyghurs into a minority in their own ancestral land. Uyghurs were being oppressed. Their cities were being taken over. They were tortured, their leaders murdered, the mosques demolished. The Old City of Kashgar, a cradle of Uyghur culture, was demolished. Against this backdrop, the communist murder of two Uyghur workers injuring100 others became an urgent cause. University students were first to speak. They gathered in the university square shouting slogans. “Let Uyghurs live!” was the rallying cry. Students then moved into People’s Square in Urumchi. Unfortunately that Square turned out to be a Tiananmen square for Uyghurs. Chinese Communists and the military started firing, killing, and detaining Uyghur students. No one knows the real number since all communication was blocked by the Chinese Communists. Thousands of Uyghurs were arbitrarily detained and “forcibly disappeared” in the days, weeks, and months after July 5. Chinese successfully turned a peaceful protest into a massacre and then started arbitrarily detaining thousands of Uyghurs. Those Uyghurs who resisted were called separatists and suffered the worst treatment Uyghurs mark July 5th every year as a resolve to be free.