Enwaer Tursun, Mayor of Kashgar, announced at a meeting on August 19 and attended by more than 800 local officials that fifteen officials in Kashgar of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, have been punished for discipline violation. They were charged with offences including abuse of power, applying favoritism, racial discrimination and dereliction of duty in counter-terrorism operations. Enwaer Tursun stressed that officials should "make Kashgar the frontier and main battlefield in counter-terrorism operations and efforts to maintain stability".