These people just can’t get a break.
Kyrgyzstan’s police detained two Uighur community leaders after they accused China of “state terrorism” at a rally on Monday and called for an independent investigation of last month’s clashes in neighbouring Xinjiang.
About 500 Uighurs gathered at a building on the outskirts of the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek with photographs posted to the walls showing what they said was abuse of their kinfolk in China.
The pictures portrayed people being beaten up and held at gunpoint as well as unconscious or dead people lying in the streets.
There are rumors the Uighur protesters were forced to disperse even though they had gathered in a private chaikhana, or teahouse. While the Kyrgyz ombudsman Tursunbek Akun has secured their release, that doesn’t make the intimidation any less real. Message received: protesting China’s policies in Kyrgyzstan gets one thrown into prison.
This post was written by...
Joshua Foust – author of 1849 posts on Registan.net.
Joshua Foust is a Fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. His research focuses primarily on Central and South Asia. Joshua is a correspondent for The Atlantic and a columnist for PBS Need to Know. Joshua appears regularly on the BBC World News, Aljazeera, and international public radio. Joshua's writing has appeared in the Columbia Journalism Review, Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, the New York Times, Reuters, and the Christian Science Monitor. Follow him on twitter: @joshuafoust
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Message received2: once again, it is clear that like under Akayev Kyrgyzstan’s kafir establishment is the prostitute and lackey of the great powers (even though they themselves and European diplotwats would call that ‘multivectoral policy’ I guess).
Akayev? The guy who teaches math at Moscow University? That Akayev?
Who else?