BEIJING — Official Chinese state media reported that 129 people were killed and more than 800 injured in a rare public protest in the northwestern Chinese city of Urumqi that turned violent Sunday as thousands of Uighurs took to the streets to vent grievances about discrimination.
Xinhua News Agency said rioters were “attacking passers-by and setting fire to vehicles,” but representatives for the Uighurs, a Muslim minority, described a peaceful demonstration that turned ugly because of government brutality.
Xinhua did not immediately release any other details on the deaths.
Witnesses reported that riot police arrived on the scene in armored personnel carriers, dispersing the crowd with water cannons and tear gas, and firing warning shots into the air. At least 300 people were reported to be arrested.
Urumqi is the capital of Xinjiang region, where 8 million Uighurs live uneasily among the majority Han Chinese.
Video that circulated on the Internet for a few hours before being removed by Chinese censors showed thousands of protesters marching. In another scene, a car fire burned out of control, sending billows of black smoke through the city.
The images bore an eerie resemblance to those that came out of Lhasa, the Tibetan region’s capital, in March 2008 when years of suppressed rage erupted in rioting. It is unclear whether the Uighurs’ protests will have a similar effect during another sensitive year, in which Beijing is planning massive celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the founding of Communist China.
The protests Sunday were triggered by the June 26 killing of two young Uighur men at a toy factory in Guangdong province. According to Uighur sources, the men were beaten to death by a mob, enraged by false rumors that they had sexually harassed Han women.
