CHINA-XINJIANG: UNREST
The official news portal of the Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region on December 28, 2016, announced that a car carrying several terrorists had crashed into the yard of the Moyu County Committee of the CCP office building in Karakax county at 4.50 pm that day. Quoting the Ministry of Public Security, Xinhua reported that police shot and killed the three attackers, who were wielding knives and managed to detonate a home-made explosive. It said there were four attackers and an official and a security worker were also killed and three others injured. It added that "social order" had been restored. On China's social media, many people praised the government’s handling of the clash, while others expressed concern about ethnic tensions in Chinese society. One Weibo Twitter user wrote: “We’re a socialist country. We should strive for ethnic equality and rooting out ethnic divisions.”
(Comment: Uyghur's comprise 97 per cent of Karakax’s population. Karakax county is part of Xinjiang's Hotan prefecture which, unlike Xinjiang’s north, has seen only a limited influx of Han people. However, despite the predominance of Uyghurs, four of the five members of the county’s party committee are Han.)
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