40 "alborotadores" died in suicide attacks or shot by authorities on Sunday
Agencies / THE COUNTRY Beijing / Madrid 26 SEP 2014
A crowd in Tiananmen Square, in may, in front of a screen showing Uigiurs dressed in regional costumes / A. WONG(AP)
The official Chinese news agency, Xinhua, has raised the death toll in the latest episode of violence in the northwestern region of Xinjiang on Sunday. Chinese media reported on Monday the death of two people after a series of explosions at a street market and two police stations in Luntai county.. this friday, the death toll amounts to 50, among them forty “troublemakers”, six civilians and four police officers. Los 40 "alborotadores" They died after being shot by security forces or after the detonation of devices in apparent suicide attacks. The regional media Tianshan Report assures that the authorities have detained two people and have shot dead the main suspect, who is accused of separatism. The Xinhua agency adds that they were injured 54 civilians, among them 32 people of the Uyghur ethnic minority.
Xinjiang province, populated mainly by Uyghurs – of Turkish ethnicity and predominantly Muslim – has been a place of recurring confrontations between central authorities and Uyghur separatists. Uyghur sectors denounce the repression of their culture and religion and discrimination by the Han, the majority ethnic group in China, that controls the political and economic life of this area rich in energy and mineral resources.
Ethnic clashes inside and outside Xinjiang have increased since a violent episode in 2009, when several days of riots left a balance of 197 dead and thousands injured, mostly from the majority ethnic group have. Episodes of violence have caused a hundred deaths this summer. After a stabbing attack in the capital of Yunnan province, that took the life of 29 people in march, There have been hundreds of arrests, numerous executions and convictions and mass trials within the framework of a so-called anti-terrorist campaign. This year there have already been more than a hundred deaths in various events, including a mass attack with knives and explosives in April at a railway station in Urumqi, capital de Xinjiang, con 43 muertos. In July, a group of assailants armed with knives killed and injured dozens of people in Kashgar prefecture (Xinjiang).
In the midst of escalating tension, Uyghur intellectual Ilham Tohti, known for being a moderate voice of that community in China, He was arrested last January and sentenced to life imprisonment on tuesday, accused of separatism.
