Security forces were protecting, rather than harassing, international
journalists covering riots in northwestern Xinjiang this week--a welcome change.
A few have reported
official interference since Sunday. But during previous outbursts of ethnic
unrest in
Official news agency Xinhua, which has downplayed news of anti-government violence in the past, is enthusiastically monitoring the rising death toll, now past 150. And after eyewitnesses overwhelmed censors with news updates on social networking sites, the mainstream Chinese media embraced images of the clashes between the predominantly Muslim Uighur minority and Han Chinese residents that were spreading online.
There, however, the surprises end. The numbers and the graphic pictures are stoking the Han majority's outrage against the Uighur protesters, who the government alleges have been coordinated by exile groups abroad. (Exiled Uighurs countered that theory, saying video of initially peaceful protests against Chinese rule had also been posted online, according to international news reports. But that message has yet to make the cut in state-sanctioned broadcasts.)
Meanwhile, in photographs that flooded the international press today, it's hard not to notice that the protesters are largely depicted as scarved women and their children while the Han Chinese are shown as armored security forces and hoards of young men carrying spades and stakes. Doubtless these pictures do not tell the full story of what unfolded in Xinjiang this weekend. But their impact, in coding the protagonists for an audience used to seeing authoritarian states oppressing minorities, will be hard to undo.
Sources on the ground who might help us navigate these
conflicting scenarios are apparently hard to come by. "Getting any Uighurs in
If you think this is reminiscent of
Rebiya Kadeer is a 62-year-old former businesswoman and mother of 11, who
was imprisoned for six years in
Yawn. When anti-separatist editorials are practically copied-and-pasted from earlier uprisings, you know the government's media strategy, despite tentative amendments for some foreigners, has yet to transform.

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何健版八荣八耻:
以追求民主为荣、以独裁专制为耻,
以思想自由为荣、以统一思想为耻,
以言论自由为荣、以扼杀言论为耻,
以新闻自由为荣、以打压媒体为耻,
以信仰自由为荣、以宗教迫害为耻,
以尊重人权为荣、以侵犯人权为耻,
以诉诸法律为荣、以打砸抢烧为耻,
以司法独立为荣、以干预司法为耻。
——摘自《何健语录》,欢迎转载,谢谢支持!
China needs a secure border. Across the border in Afghanistan and Pakistan is the biggest war in the world. Funding for the Uighur National Congress has roots in the US Congress. China has reason to be selective about the news. Yes there is censorship. Can you imagine what the US would do if minorities in one of our states had similar issues and organization? I was asked whether I had pictures. I showed them to my Chinese leader. At the airport the pictures of many Han Chinese carrying sticks were removed from the camera inside my checked-in luggage. At the post office where I mailed boxes, every single person in line was asked if they had any pictures or videos in their packages from Xinjiang--this was in Hunan. I was a teacher traveling through Urumqi.