China dismisses Uighur claim 10,000 are missing
BEIJING — China dismissed an exiled activist’s claim that 10,000 minority Uighurs disappeared during a recent crackdown after ethnic riots erupted in its far west, calling the figure “completely fabricated” on Thursday.
The government has repeatedly said the riots in the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi were orchestrated by separatist Uighur groups. Authorities have provided little evidence to support that contention, but they released a most-wanted list Thursday with the names of 15 people they are seeking for their alleged roles in the ethnic violence — the worst to hit the country in decades.
All but one appeared to be Uighur, a minority mostly Muslim ethnic group that has complained Beijing is trying to strip them of their religion, language and culture.
The government has particularly focused its ire on Rebiya Kadeer, a U.S.-based Uighur dissident, who on Wednesday said thousands of minority Uighurs were unaccounted for after the unrest that left nearly 200 dead. Kadeer, who heads the pro-independence World Uyghur Congress, an overseas group, has denied inciting the violence.
A Chinese official on Thursday dismissed Kadeer’s claim, made during a speech in Tokyo.
A spokeswoman for the Xinjiang regional government, Hou Hanmin, said the figures were inaccurate and “completely fabricated.”
“How many prisons and holding cells do you think we would need in Urumqi to hold 10,000 people? She was not there that day, so she has no place to talk about what happened,” Hou told The Associated Press.
“She has no proof of any of this and no matter who she tells, no one will believe her.”
In her speech Kadeer, 62, who was once a prominent businesswoman in Xinjiang, said China should allow an international investigation into the disappearances. She provided no explanation of how she arrived at that number.
“Nearly 10,000 people disappeared overnight from Urumqi. Where did they go? Were they all killed or sent somewhere?” Kadeer asked angrily at a news conference at the Japan National Press Club. “The Chinese government should fully disclose what it did to them.”
Her visit to Japan has drawn strong opposition from Beijing, who said they summoned Japan’s ambassador to the Foreign Ministry to express “strong dissatisfaction.”
The riots started July 5 in Urumqi, the capital of the predominantly Muslim region of Xinjiang, when police stopped a protest by Turkic-speaking Uighur residents. The Uighurs smashed windows, burned cars and attacked Han Chinese. Two days later, the Han took to the streets and staged retaliatory attacks.
The Chinese government has said more than 1,600 people suspected of being involved in the riots have been detained, and the official Xinhua News Agency said the Urumqi Public Security Bureau issued a notice Thursday with the names and photos of 15 more.
All but one of the names on the list appeared to be Uighur. The other was Han Chinese — the nation’s dominant ethnic group.
The notice urged the suspects to turn themselves in. Those who did so within 10 days would “be dealt with leniently. … The ones who refuse to turn themselves in will be dealt with severely according to the law.”
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