Thousands of students are being held under house arrest at a teaching college in Kashgar , in an apparent move to prevent them from taking part in the wave of protests that have rocked Xinjiang .
The students have been prevented from leaving campus since early on Sunday, before demonstrations in Urumqi escalated into violence.
Undergraduates and college students were believed to have led the initially peaceful protests in Urumqi, held to commemorate the deaths of Uygur migrant workers in an ethnic clash in Guangdong province. Many of the protesters were thought to have travelled from Kashgar, as most of the workers in Guangdong had hailed from the towns and villages around Kashgar.
The South China Morning Post was denied access yesterday to the Kashgar Teaching Institute - the city's main post-secondary education centre - on an attempt to visit the campus. A security guard told the Post: 'You are not allowed in and the students are not allowed out.'
Several couples and families separated by the house arrest spoke with one another through the railings, but most declined to be interviewed.
'It's safer inside here. We trust the government,' one student said through the bars, gesturing with his eyebrows that he suspected a lingering passer-by was eavesdropping.
A few police officers were seen patrolling near the campus but there were no soldiers in sight.
