The anger against the Chinese in the Xinjiang province has two dimensions --ethnic and religious.
The ethnic dimension is due to the Han colonisation of the province, which was independent before 1949 under the name Eastern Turkestan. Since it was occupied by the Chinese and incorporated into the People's Republic of China in October 1949, the Han colonisation has reduced the percentage of Uighurs in the province from 80 to 45. The percentage of Han Chinese has gone up from 10 to 40 . In Urumqi, the capital, the Hans constitute about 75 per cent of the population and the Uighurs only about 15 per cent.
The religious dimension is due to the restrictions imposed by the Chinese authorities on the observance of the Muslim religion and the alleged eradication of the Islamic character of the towns. These restrictions relate to the construction of new mosques. The religious anger is also due to the alleged demolition of some old mosques to make way for the construction of public buildings and shopping malls andforcing meat shops and restaurants to remain open and serve customers during the fasting period. The Muslims allege that new buildings are forced to be constructed according to modern architectural style and not according to traditional Islamic style. They further allege that as a result the historic Islamic landscape of the area has been changing. Another cause for the religious anger is the restrictions on travel to Saudi Arabia for Haj and Umra pilgrimages.
While the ethnic anger is confined to the Uighurs, who now constitute the largest single ethnic group, but no longer in a majority, the religious anger has affected allMuslims -- Uighurs as well as non-Uighurs from Central China and migrants from the Central Asian Republics. The percentage of Muslims in the province has come down from 90 in 1949 to 60 now, but they are still in a majority.
These two dimensions have given rise to two different organisations opposing the Chinese rule. The ethnic dimension has given rise to the World Uighur Congress (WUC), which was established on April 16, 2004 in Munich, Germany, by merging the East Turkestan National Congress and the World Uighur Youth Congress, which had been active for many years before 2004. It describes its main objective as to promote the right of the Uighur people to use peaceful,non-violent, and democratic means to determine the political future of EastTurkestan.
The Urumchi uprising of July 5 and 6,2009, followed less than two months after the WUC had held its Third General Assembly in Washington, DC from May 21-25, 2009 . Delegates and observers from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Norway, Sweden, Turkey and the the US attended the Assembly. Ms. Rebiya Kadeer was re-elected as the President of theWUC.
Mrs. Rebiya Kadeer, an Uighur human rights activist, was released from detention by the Chinese authorities under US pressure and allowed to migrate to the US in 2005. Her nomination by human rights groups in the West for consideration for the possible award of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 was denounced by the Chinese as an insult to the Uighur people.
The 58-year-old Rebiya was arrested by the Chinese in 1999 on charges of endangering national security by indulging in anti-State activities. She was also accused of income tax evasion and indulging in narcotics smuggling and sentenced to eight years' imprisonment.
In November 2006, the Chinese prosecuted two of her sons on charges of tax invasion. One ofthem-- Alimu Ahbudurimu-- was jailed for seven years and fined. The other-- Kahaer Ahbudurimu--was only fined. Mrs Kadeer had alleged in May 2006 that her two sons and a daughter had been taken into custody by the Chinese to prevent them from meeting a US Congressional team visitingXinjiang.
Before her arrest in 1999, Mrs Kadeer had owned a prosperous department store and started a charity helping other Muslim women find work. She had even been appointed to a seat on one of the Chinesegovernment's highest consultative bodies. Things changed for her in 1996 after her husband Sidik Rouzi managed to flee to the US. Her persecution, detention, trial and conviction followed thereafter.
Among other political prisoners in detention in Xinjiang were: Tohti Tunyaz, who was studying in Japan. He was arrested in 1998 while on a trip to Xinjiang to gather material for his post-graduate thesis on Uighur history. While there, he had allegedly obtained a number of old documents, which Chinese prosecutors described as state secrets; Abdulghani Memetemin, a teacher and journalist who was sentenced on 24 June 2003 to nine years in jail for "providing state secrets for an organisation outside the country"; and Muhammed Tohti Metrozi, who had fled to Pakistan from Xinjiang in 2003 and sought the protection of the local office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Pakistan'sInter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had him kidnapped and handed over to the Chinese.