BEIJING: Chinese authorities in the southwestern region of Guangxi shot dead two ethnic minority Uyghurs after they tried to cross the border into neighboring Vietnam, official said.
China’s armed police are also in pursuit of a third suspect who fled to an area near Guangxi’s Pingxiang city, the semi-official China News Service report said.
According to the report, the suspects attacked police officers after being forced to stop by two police cars.
Exile Uyghur organizations however said that Chinese authorities may have used excessive force against the Uyghurs fleeing a “campaign of terror” against the ethnic minority group, which claim to have long suffered ethnic discrimination, oppressive religious controls, and continued poverty and joblessness.
A business owner from Pingxiang told RFA that tensions remain high in the border town on Monday, amid a strong police presence.
“There are police on all the intersections around here,” the store owner said. “There are a lot of riot police patrolling the area, though not much is happening right now.”
A resident from the nearby Tianxin Shenghuopian district surnamed Luo said the incident came after the authorities had been running blanket security operations in the border area in recent weeks.
Local residents are being asked to take part in the security checks, including the manhunt for the third suspect, Luo said.
“The government informed us, and we are prepared,” he said.
He added, using phrases that sound similar to the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s official line on the troubled Xinjiang region: “I believe that the majority of Uyghurs are good people, but that there is a very small minority of extremists, terrorists who are devoid of conscience.”
“They carry out attacks on humanity.”
He said police have set up security checkpoints at all intersections in the area.
“If we find him, of course we will inform the police immediately,” Luo said. “We are close to the border here, and it’s likely that terrorists and extremists use it as a route to leave the country.”
Last month, police in Guangxi shot dead one Uyghur and detained a group of 21 people described in state-run media as “religious extremists” who had been trying to cross the border in Vietnam at Pingxiang.
China’s Ministry of Public Security last year set up a task force targeting gangs smuggling people across borders in the southwest of the country.
Since the group was set up in May last year the police have detained 352 people suspected of people smuggling, while a further 852 people were held for allegedly trying to cross borders illegally.
Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the Germany-based World Uyghur Congress (WUC), said his group is extremely worried about Uyghurs who try to exit China in this manner.
“These shootings and killings are totally unacceptable,” Raxit said in an interview on Monday. “The Chinese government is using every means possible to terrorize large numbers of Uyghurs who want to leave China.”
“The authorities’ claim that [the Uyghurs] have links with overseas terrorist organizations is politically motivated,” he said.
According to Raxit, many Uyghurs are trying to leave China, even when their lives are at risk, because of “China’s campaign of terror” targeting them.
“The Uyghurs who leave China are hoping to escape life under this reign of terror.”
He said the authorities are encouraging local people in southwestern China to report groups of Uyghurs traveling together.
