By James T. Areddy
SHANGHAI--Eight men were indicted Friday in northwestern China
on charges tied to a fiery vehicle crash last year near Beijing's
Tiananmen Square that killed five people. It was the first in a
string of attacks that Beijing labeled terrorism and put scrutiny
on a region of China with a largely Muslim ethnic minority.
The eight men were charged with unspecified roles in the Oct. 28
incident as well as organizing, leading and participating in a
terrorist group and endangering public security with dangerous
strategies, according to the official Xinhua news agency. It didn't
name them, though authorities had previously announced the arrest
of eight men with names similar to those used by the Uighur ethnic
minority as suspects in the case.
Xinhua said they would be tried later in Urumqi Intermediate
People's Court, in the capital city of Xinjiang, the northwestern
region of China where many ethic Uighurs live. They aren't
reachable for comment.
The Tiananmen incident resulted in the deaths of two tourists in
addition to three people in the vehicle. The incident near the
portrait of Mao Zedong at the time was considered a rare instance
of violence by ethnic-Uighur separatists outside Xinjiang, where
many of the mostly Muslim Turkic group lives, and where some are
pushing for independence.
Witnesses and state media said that despite already tight
controls in that particularly sensitive part of Beijing, a
sport-utility vehicle plowed for several hundred yards along a
sidewalk, knocking down several pedestrians before hitting a
guardrail and bursting into flames. Police said the passengers--an
ethnic Uighur man, his wife and mother--set the vehicle on fire,
killing themselves.
Other incidents have followed, handing President Xi Jinping an
unexpected terrorism challenge. They include a mass-stabbing in the
southern city Kunming almost three months ago, and a May 20 attack
with explosives in an Urumqi market that left 39 dead and almost
100 injured.
Analysts and Uighur activists say the violence reflects Chinese
economic and social policies in the region that they consider
unfair. In recent days, China's government has vowed to tackle
income disparities in Xinjiang, including pledging that one member
of each family there would be offered a job.
Yet, the core of the yearlong program announced by the Communist
Party's top leadership last week is a campaign in Xinjiang to
harshly crack down on terrorism. Top priority should be given to
the fight against violent terrorist attacks and religious extremist
forces, according to a Xinhua summary of a plan set by the Chinese
Communist Party's Politburo, a high decision-making body, on May
26.
Afterward, the government announced raids on suspected terrorist
cells in Xinjiang and the arrests of several alleged plotters. One
police raid there this week netted 1.8 metric tons of unidentified
explosive material and another turned up evidence of terror-related
video production, authorities said.
One exile group, the Washington-based Uyghur American
Association, criticized the campaign in a statement this week. It
said, "an extended crackdown on Uyghurs will merely prolong a cycle
of violence precipitated by repressive policies in the region."
The group said antiterrorist activity has in the recent past led
to the arrest of moderate Uighurs, including a Beijing economist
named Ilham Tohti, who was detained in January in Beijing and sent
to Xinjiang where police say he was charged with using his classes
to advocate violent protests. He can't be reached but his family
has declared his innocence.
In the wake of the attacks, Beijing and other Chinese
municipalities, authorities have noticeably tightened security in
public venues, including parks and subways.
Last week, a Communist Party organization in the capital, the
Beijing Office of Social Management and Control, said it is
distributing red armbands to 850,000 volunteers and another 100,000
an official described as "informants." For major events from the
Beijing Olympics to sporting events, China's government often
organizes volunteers to provide a frontline security defense.
City authorities there also reiterated the availability of
rewards announced in February to pay up to 40,000 yuan (about
$6,500) for information that leads to terrorists.
A similar program got under way this month in Shanghai where
hundreds of the thousands of volunteers were outfitted in yellow
vests to keep watch at subway stops and offered rewards. The east
coast city is also spearheading new national regulations that allow
more police officers to carry handguns, augmenting forces in
militarylike vehicles parked on the city's busier shopping
streets.
High alert in China to the risks of religious-inspired terrorism
appeared to help draw heavy online attention Saturday to a grisly
murder in northeastern China, where police say six men bludgeoned a
woman to death in a fast-food restaurant.
Patrons in the McDonald's Corp. restaurant in Zhaoyuan, Shandong
Province videoed and photographed the incident, which had occurred
on Wednesday. McDonald's didn't respond to a request for
comment.
China's Ministry of Public Security on Saturday blamed the
murder on "six religious extremists." They linked the culprits to a
group called "Almighty God," which authorities had previously
identified as a Christian-inspired cult determined to end Communist
Party rule.
Police said men stabbed and hit the young woman during a
recruiting drive after she refused their request to hand over her
telephone number. Police said five of the six were detained.
Write to James T. Areddy at james.areddy@wsj.com
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires