Tiananmen crash: Xinjiang security tightened

Chinese state media called for vigilance a day after police arrested five suspects for what they called a 'terror attack'.

A car crashed into a crowd and burst into flames at Beijing's Tiananmen Square on Monday, killing all three in the car and two bystanders.

The suspects all appear to be from the restive western region of Xinjiang, home to China's Muslim Uighur minority.

However, Uighur activists have called for an independent investigation.

Monday's crash, which happened around midday at the northern end of Tiananmen Square near an entrance to the Forbidden City, left 38 people injured.

Analysis

Chinese police said Monday's attack was ''carefully planned, organized and premeditated'. However, nagging questions remain: If this was a suicide attack, why were two extra passengers sitting in the car that crashed, including the driver's mother?

Also, the police report they found 'a flag with extremist religious content' in the burned vehicle. Why wasn't it destroyed when the SUV went up in flames?

Posts on Weibo, China's version of Twitter, that posed similar questions were quickly deleted by censors. And even though news of Wednesday's arrests appeared on the Weibo account of CCTV, Chinese State Television, around 18:00, there was no mention of the story on the network's flagship 19:00 newscasts.

Clearly, the Chinese authorities are hoping the public will accept the official version of the story and will move on, without asking too many questions.

Police said that the jeep was driven by a man who was with his wife and mother. They had ignited petrol inside the car, they added.

The five suspects believed to be connected to the incident were arrested 10 hours after the crash, police said.

'This is the first time that violent terrorist forces from Xinjiang have caused a serious incident in Beijing,' state-controlled newspaper Global Times said on Thursday.

'The inland people need to step up vigilance,' it said, adding: 'Violent terrorists are the common enemies of all China. People from Xinjiang, especially the Uighurs will be the biggest victims.'

State-run China Daily described those behind the attack as 'religious extremists'.

'What they have done is against the interests and will of the majority of Uighurs, who have benefited from the unity of the country,' it said.

However, Rebiya Kadeer, leader of the World Uighur Congress, which represents the Uighur community in exile, told Reuters news agency she was afraid that the incident would be used by China to 'justify its heavy-handed repression' in Xinjiang.

'Chinese claims simply cannot be accepted as facts without an independent and international investigation,' she said.

Uighurs and Xinjiang Uighurs are ethnically Turkic Muslims They make up about 45% of the region's population; 40% are Han Chinese China re-established control in 1949 after crushing short-lived state of East Turkestan Since then, there was large-scale immigration of Han Chinese Uighurs fear erosion of traditional culture

'It is difficult to tell [the truth] at the moment, given the strict control of information by the Chinese government on this tragic incident.'

'If the Uighurs did it, I believe they did it out of desperation because there is no channel for the Uighur people to seek redress for any kind of injustice they had suffered under Chinese rule.'

Some of Xinjiang's Muslim Uighur group complain of cultural and religious repression under Beijing's rule. There have been sporadic outbreaks of violence in Xinjiang, including ethnic rioting in the capital, Urumqi, in 2009 that left some 200 people dead.

China says it grants the Uighurs wide-ranging freedoms.

In Urumqi, tight security was said to be in place.

'The inspection in Urumqi is much stricter. There are police checking our car trunks at every gas station and big markets,' Mr Feng, a driver, told the BBC.

'On the streets, you see more special police squads and local security teams, especially in crowded places like supermarkets and shopping malls. For cars coming into Urumqi city, those from southern Xinjiang will be inspected very strictly, and ethnic looking people have to go through strict inspection as well.'