Hackers target Australian festival showing Uyghur film

Hackers repeatedly attacked the Web site of Australia’s largest film festival Saturday, asking organizers to apologize to the Chinese people for planning to screen a documentary on an exiled Uyghur leader. The attacks were carried out on the opening day of the Melbourne International Film Festival — in what organizers are calling the third phase of a “concerted campaign” to withdraw the film “The 10 Conditions of Love.” The documentary examines the impact on the family of activist Rebiya Kadeer as she fights for greater autonomy of the ethnic minority group, the Uyghurs, in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China’s northwest. Kadeer is the president of the World Uyghur Congress, made up of exiled Uyghurs.

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China says police killed 12 in Uyghur riots

China acknowledged Sunday that security forces shot dead 12 people during ethnic riots in the northwest earlier this month. Officials also said Sunday that the death toll from the violence in the Xinjiang region had risen to 197. The government had previously said the fighting killed at least 184 people and wounded more than 1,000

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Two Uyghurs shot dead by Chinese police

Police shot and killed two ethnic Uyghurs and wounded another in a Chinese region that has seen violent ethnic strife in recent weeks, state media reported Monday. The police were trying to stop the three people from attacking a fourth person with clubs and knives in Urumqi, Xinjiang, China Radio International reported, citing the local government. All four people involved in the incident were ethnic Uyghurs, a minority Muslim group distinct from China’s majority Han population, CRI said.

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Report: Major mosques close in Urumqi, China

Five major mosques near the center of violence last weekend in Urumqi, the capital of China’s far-west Xinjiang region, were closed Friday morning, state-run media reported. Same smaller mosques in the city remained open, according to the Xinhua news agency. “Mosques in some sensitive areas were closed at their imams’ suggestion,” an official in charge of religious affairs with the Xinjiang regional government said Friday.

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Reporter’s notebook: Boiling emotions in China

Han Chinese protesters were out in the streets, not far from our hotel near the People’s Square, on Tuesday. A lot of the Han Chinese own shops in the area and there are some hospitals in the vicinity. When we saw the protesters marching in the streets, we simply followed them.

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Hu leaves G8 to deal with Xinjiang unrest

Chinese President Hu Jintao changed plans to attend a summit of major economic powers in Italy, instead returning home to address ethnic violence raking northwestern China, state-run media reported Wednesday. Tensions have been simmering in Urumqi, the capital of China’s far-west Xinjiang region, where violent demonstrations over the weekend have left at least 156 people dead and more than 1,000 injured. The unrest in Urumqi was brought under control with a massive presence of soldiers and anti-riot squads, the government said Tuesday

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