Xinjiang is a region on the westernmost edge of northern China. It is home to an ethnic Muslim minority called Uighurs
long chafed under Chinese rule and have protested the steady influx of ethnic Chinese into the region.
region has been part of many different and, at times, competing empires.
Xinjiang have agitated against Chinas authoritarian government. Their protests are a reaction
Just as Chinese leaders try to control other religions, including Catholicism and evangelical Christianity, they have issued strict policies for Muslim Uighurs. They must use a state-approved Koran.
Mosques are managed by the government. And Uighur men who want government jobs have been forced to shave their beards; women are forbidden to wear head scarves.
Human rights groups have been fairly critical of Chinas treatment of Uighurs. One of the most egregious examples they cite occurred just weeks ago, when authorities seized a prominent Uighur scholar named Ilham Tohti at his home without explanation.
Readers who closely followed the debate over detainees held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, may recall a group of Uighurs who were essentially stranded there for more than a decade
When U.S. officials tried to transfer them to other countries, China warned the nations not to accept them.
The violence has been bad for a while.
Whats different now is the emergence of targeted terrorist strikes.
The Chinese government will not hesitate to concoct a version of the incident in
Beijing, so as to further impose repressive measures on the Uighur people.
To Chinese, the most shocking attack blamed on Uighurs occurred in October when a jeep veered into a crowd in
Beijings Tiananmen Square, then crashed and burst into flames, killing five people.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world...bd033e-a210-11e3-84d4-e59b1709222c_story.html
PS: IF THE BLURRING ON THE ORGINAL PASSENGER MANIFEST IS CORRECT- THEN FROM DAY ONE THOSE IN POWER KNEW THERE WAS HUGE CONCERN -FROM THE ONSET, IMO
