For members of China’s ethnic Uygur minority in Beijing, police harassment is a way of life. That pressure has only intensified after this week’s deadly vehicle attack at Tiananmen Square in which Uygurs are the prime suspects.
“They (police) come to search us every day. We don’t know why. Our IDs are checked every day, and we don’t know what is happening,” said Ali Rozi, 28, a Uygur trader who gathered with others at the dusty outdoor Panijayuan curio market in Beijing on Wednesday.
“We have trouble every day, but we haven’t done anything,” said Rozi, who is from Kashghar, the capital of Xinjiang province where most Uygurs live.
The police scrutiny of the Uygurs in Beijing highlights the years of discrimination that has fuelled an insurgency by radical Uygurs seeking independence for their northwestern homeland of Xinjiang. Many Uygurs say they face routine discrimination, irksome restrictions on their culture and Muslim religion, and economic disenfranchisement that has left them largely poor even as China’s economy booms.
Monday’s incident, in which a sports utility vehicle barrelled through crowds and burst into flames near the portrait of Mao Zedong on Tiananmen Gate, hasn’t been officially labelled as terrorism. Beijing police have said only that they are investigating the attack, which killed the car’s three occupants and two bystanders and injured dozens in a strike at the capital’s political heart, where China’s Communist Party leaders live and work.