Chinese state media are releasing more details about what they call a “terrorist attack” Monday in Tiananmen Square, while dozens of arrests were reported in a subsequent crackdown on a mainly Muslim ethnic group.
Chinese Central Television says eight suspected Islamist separatists from the troubled northwest region of Xinjiang had been planning the attack since September and had accumulated more than $6,500 to help carry it out.
The broadcaster says three of the suspects drove a Mercedes SUV packed with “Tibetan knives” and 400 liters of petrol into the square on Monday, killing themselves, two tourists, and wounding dozens of others. The five others have been arrested.
China’s domestic security chief Meng Jianzhu on Friday blamed the attack on a Xinjiang-based Muslim Uighur separatist group, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement. The U.S. and U.N. both classified ETIM as a terrorist organization in 2002.
It is unclear how Meng’s accusation fits with the claims made in the CCTV report, which said the suspects decided to form a terrorist group only last month.
Meanwhile, the World Uyghur Congress said Saturday that Chinese police have arrested 53 people in Xinjiang over the past two days in what it called a crackdown on the Uighur minority group.
The exile group fears that Beijing could use the incident to justify further restrictions on the Uighur community, which already complains of religious and cultural persecution.
China denies mistreating Uighurs, saying it is waging a campaign against separatists who are trying to form a separate nation called East Turkestan. It says Uighurs are are guaranteed wide-ranging religious and cultural freedoms and are benefiting from urban development.
Clashes in Xinjiang are not uncommon between Uighurs and the Han Chinese majority or members of the government security forces. Beijing says over 200 people have been killed in such attacks in recent years. But this is the first time Chinese authorities have blamed Uighurs for a major incident in Beijing.
