Free Republic

Brett visits with Bruce Pannier from RFE/RL to talk about the latest in the fight between China and the Uighurs in Xinjiang Province. Bruce gives you a deep history of this group and tells us that OIL may be at the root of the recent fights. Brett and Bruce also discuss the role that Al Qaeda may be playing in the fight. It is a great visit to an area of the world not covered by the press.

BEIJING (AFP) - At least two people died early Sunday in a series of explosions in the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang, state media said, in an attack that eyewitnesses said was followed by gunfire. The report did not say who was responsible for the blasts which came little more than a day after the start of the Olympics in Beijing. Uighur separatists in Xinjiang have in video statements threatened to attack the sporting event and Chinese authorities have also warned that "terrorists" from home and abroad pose a massive threat to the Games. The blasts on Sunday occurred between...

KASHGAR, China (AFP) - Chinese authorities Friday announced stepped up controls on religious figures and potential "trouble-makers" in the Muslim city of Kashgar as the Olympic Games opened in Beijing. The order by the Kashgar government followed an attack that killed 16 police officers and a new threat by ethnic Uighur separatists from China's far northwest Xinjiang region to attack the Games. "To ensure stability, (authorities) have strengthened controls on non-residents to root out trouble, and stepped up controls on key people, religious figures and trouble-making petitioners to stay abreast of things," said an announcement on the city government's website....

PARIS (AFP) - Police banned demonstrations outside the Chinese embassy in Paris on Thursday but critics of China's human rights record stepped up protests elsewhere in the world to mark the start of the Beijing Olympics. Police in the French capital said they did not want a repeat of the "violent disturbances" that broke out in April when the Olympic torch passed through Paris, when activists angry at China's crackdown in Tibet disrupted the route. They banned any protests outside the embassy on Thursday and Friday, when the Games officially open, including a demonstration planned Friday by a coalition including...

via translation- ALERT - China: 16 customs officers killed and 16 wounded in an attack in Xinjiang BEIJING - Sixteen customs officers were killed and sixteen others injured Monday morning when the attack on their post in Xinjiang, Muslim region of northwestern China, according to the China New Agency.

HOTAN, China - There was no sign of dissent in the bazaar, where men wove through the crowd on motorcycles with freshly butchered sheep draped behind them. But a Muslim merchant pinched his lips together with his fingers to show he could not talk freely. "The Chinese are too bad, really bad," said Hama, who added that the Chinese had broken up a protest of about 200 people last month. He put his wrists together as if handcuffed. "I can't say more or I'll get arrested." As China grapples with protests in Tibet, it also faces unrest on its Central...

BEIJING, Feb 9 (Reuters) - China has executed a Uighur activist in a far-northwestern city for attempting to "split the motherland" and possessing explosives, drawing condemnation from a human rights group which said the evidence was insufficient. Ismail Semed, who was deported to China from Pakistan in 2003, had told the court a confession had been coerced, but he was executed nevertheless on Thursday in Urumqi, capital of the predominantly Muslim region of Xinjiang, Radio Free Asia on Friday quoted his widow, Buhejer, as saying. "When the body was transferred to us at the cemetery I saw only one bullet...

BEIJING - Police found links to international terrorist groups during a raid on an alleged terror camp in China's restive western Muslim region last week, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday. Police said they raided a training camp run by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, or ETIM, in the mountainous Xinjiang region on Friday, killing 18 suspects and arresting 17 others. "There is a large amount of evidence that shows, including evidence we got from this raid, that the ETIM is associated with international terrorist forces," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao. He also said that the group "planned, organized and...

BEIJING - Chinese police raided an alleged terrorist camp in a western mountain region near the border with Pakistan, killing 18 suspects and arresting 17, a police official said Monday. Song Hongli, director of the general office of the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau, said the raid occurred Friday at a training camp run by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, or ETIM. One police officer was killed and another was injured in the shoot-out, Song said. Police are searching for suspects who are believed to have escaped during the raid, Song said, but did not say how many. Police found 22...

Albania takes Guantanamo Uighurs The Uighurs have been at Guantanamo for years Five Chinese Muslim men have been released from the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay and flown to Albania for resettlement, the US says. US officials had concluded the ethnic Uighers represented no danger but did not want to return them to China for fear they would face persecution. Uighurs are seeking a homeland in the western Chinese province of Xinjiang. The US State Department called Albania's offer to resettle the men, "an important humanitarian gesture". The five men were among around 20 Chinese Uighurs held at Guantanamo...

At least 22 miners have been killed and some 60 more are missing after a gas explosion in a coal mine in western China, state media has reported. The blast happened at 0230 (1830 GMT) in the Shenlong coal mine in the western region of Xinjiang, the official Xinhua news agency said. At least 87 miners were underground at the time. Five have been rescued. China's coal mines are reputed to be the world's deadliest - more than 1,000 people have died in them this year. Xinhua said the cause of the explosion was still being investigated. An official from...

China acrobats 'defect' in Canada Xinjiang's native population is distinct from China's Han majority. Seven acrobats from China's largely Muslim region of Xinjiang are reported to have claimed asylum while on tour in Canada. The semi-official China News Service (CNS) quoted a Communist Party chief as saying some acrobats "stayed behind". Canadian news reports say the seven acrobats - five men and two women - hoped to stay in Canada and filed refugee claims in Toronto last week. The acrobatic troupe was in Canada as part of Chinese New Year festivities. It was not clear if the Canada would give...