China Imposes Death Penalty on Man Accused of Starting Riots

By Megan E. Dodge
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

SHAOGUAN, China– A court in the southern region of China sentenced a man to death for his involvement in a brawl in July. Chinese officials believe that he was the trigger to the deadly riots which occurred in the far western region of Urumqi located in the Xinjiang province.

Map of Xinjiang Map of Xinjiang. Courtesy of BBC News.

The factory brawl in Guangdong province in June left two Muslim Uighurs dead and 14 others seriously injured. According to State media, the fight erupted between a group of Han Chinese and ethnic Uighur workers from Xinjiang at a Hong Kong owned toy factory in Shaoguan, in the Guangdong province. The violence broke out after a rumor spread that some Uighurs had raped two women form the factory.

A report was released and stated that two Uighur workers were beaten to death in the fight, and three men were severely injured. Other Han then turned on the Uighurs, beating them with iron bars and stopping medical personnel from treating the wounded, it added. Two men faced charges of intentionally harming others. Nine others were given prison sentences of five to eight years, Xinhua news agency reported. The courts in Shaoguan also gave another man life imprisonment, and nine others got sentences ranging from five to eight years in jail, the official Xinhua news agency reported. The man given the death sentence is reportedly a Han Chinese.

The incident sparked the fighting in July between Uighurs and members of China’s dominant Han ethnic group. A subsequent protest by the Uighur community in Urumqi, the capital of the western Xinjiang region, erupted in violence on July 5, with at least 197 people killed and another 1,700 injured. The turmoil is thought to be the worst ethnic violence in China for decades. The government says most of the dead were Han Chinese, but the exile activist group the World Uighur Congress claims many Uighurs were also killed.

 

For more information, please see:

BBC World News – Death sentence over China riots – October 9, 2009

Reuters – China gives death sentence over Uighur brawl case – October 10, 2009

Kyodo News – Man sentenced to death over southern China factory brawl – October 10, 2009

Author: Impunity Watch Archive