Three Xinjiang residents have been arrested or penalised for spreading 'harmful information' using text messages, including one message that police said incited separatism in the restive region.
Residents of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region were shut off from the outside world with bans on international calls, access to the internet and text messaging after the riots on July 5, which killed at least 197 people and injured up to 2,000. Only since late last month have such services been gradually resuming.
According to the region's official news portal, Tianshan Net, at least three Xinjiang residents were arrested in the past 11 days. The full names of the arrested individuals were not provided, but from their surnames, none appeared to be Uygurs, the largest ethnic group in the region.
The portal reported three incidents:
On January 17, a resident surnamed Ma sent a message containing separatist content to several mobile phones, and he continued doing so despite warning messages from his telecoms company. The police arrested him after receiving complaints from the public.
On January 18, a university student surnamed Zhou was arrested for spreading 'alarming information' by SMS, 'causing terror'. Police gave him an administrative warning and let him go.