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Archives

Archive1(July 5 - July 8, 2009) Archive2 (July 8 - July 12, 2009) Archive3 (July 12 - July 26, 2009) Archive4(July 27 - July 29, 2009)

A few days ago I was able to see a talk by Gardiner Bovingdon, one of the big Central-Asia-ologists at the University of Indiana (in Chinese media he's known as something like 抱文得, I think), who has been interviewed a lot about the riots. I tried to take some notes on main points he mentioned that would be good to keep in mind for this article.

• This BBC timeline seems like one of the most accurate and neutral resources available. It is what he used as sort of the outline for his talk, and both the timeline and his talk also corresponded pretty closely to the history of our own article.
• According to Bovingdon, any reported ethnic breakdowns of death tolls are not "yet" reliable.
• It's important to make it clear that the intervention after the riots was police intervention, not military. I think our article already does this well.
• One of the things Bovingdon made a big deal about (I think rightly so) is the lack of attention paid to Uyghur media coverage of the riots. (Part of this is because the language is not widely spoken; for Wikipedia purposes, another big problem is that there are few so-called "reliable sources", by WP standards, in Uyghur; there is Radio Free Asia and there are forums such as meshrep.com, but for WP it would be better to stick to news articles. Local news outlets in various XUAR cities exist, although I'm not familiar with all of them.)
• Things that seem like they may be important to mention and aren't (as far as I can tell) in the article right now:
  • Apparently on July 7(ish) some of the Han vigilantes had a confrontation with police, to complain about arrests of Hans. This is the opposite of what we are mostly hearing about (Uyghurs complaining about the arrests of Uyghurs) so might help balance the article.
  • The mosque closings on July 10: a big deal, and currently only seem to be mentioned in passing. (Interestingly, in the current version, the prose mentions that the government "conceded" to demands and "re-opened" some mosques, but doesn't appear to mention their being closed in the first place.)

Anyway, just some stuff to think about and/or work on. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 03:01, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Thanks. It's useful as a reality check - if for nothing else. Ohconfucius (talk) 03:33, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That was really interesting to read. Well-done. :) Colipon+(Talk) 06:30, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Wines, Michael (27 August 2009). "China Approves New Law Governing Armed Police Force". The New York Times. Retrieved 28 August 2009.

According to this article, the riots and subsequent criticisms may have been part of what prompted the PRC to pass this law. Not sure if it's worthy of mention yet, since the connection is basically speculative, but I just wanted to at least bring it to attention here. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 15:31, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

New protests going on in Urumqi:

• Bristlow, Michael (4 September 2009). "Protesters face police in China riot city". BBC online. Retrieved 4 September 2009.
• "Chinese break up 'needle' riots". BBC online. 4 September 2009. Retrieved 4 September 2009.

And that's not all; apparently 5 people have been killed:

• "China official: 5 killed during Urumqi protests". Associated Press. 4 July 2009. Retrieved 4 July 2009.

This comes just as I was about to go through and update the article on long-term impact/aftermath/etc. Now it looks like we might have another quickly-developing mess on our hands, though. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 16:33, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Rumours are flying fast on this one. It is confirmed that a small number opf Uyghurs have been stabbing people with hypodermic needles. What is still in rumour-land is reports of HIV infection and cyanide contamination on the hypos.Simonm223 (talk) 02:56, 6 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

More sources:

• Woman recounts Xinjiang syringe stabbing (AFP)
• Xinjiang needle attacks continuing: victims (AFP)

Regards, -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 03:07, 6 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm starting to work on going through the article updating, copyediting, etc., to prepare for reviews like GAN/PR/FAC (assuming that people can agree it's ready... it might have to be delayed if the September protests cause it to have another massive wave of editing, and FAC probably won't be an option before we hear anything final about the trials, but this is at least a start); I'll try to leave comments here as I go. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 17:02, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Update: I've gotten bold and nominated this for GAN. I still have a few sections to get through, and I'm sure you all will have comments below, but it will probably take at least two weeks before a review starts on this so I think it should be fine. If anyone thinks it's not a good time to nominate this yet, feel free to speak up here and we can withdraw it. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 07:50, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Now that we can look back with perspective, I think it's probably not necessary to have such an in-depth breakdown of the casualty numbers as they vary over time. When we were first writing this we were updating every time a new number came out, but usually preserving the earlier numbers too; now we can probably just report the "final"/"official" number, along with the caveat that it's government statistics and people are uncertain about it (with sources, of course; just about all the recent sources I'm adding in my latest update, which have summaries of the July riots, mention that the death toll is fuzzy). In some cases it makes sense to report temporary numbers (for example, we should say that the first news was reporting 3 dead...then by whatever time, the reported death toll was increased to over a hundred). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 17:02, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good call. I also found it terribly tedious to have an "ethnic breakdown" at every given opportunity. I understand that in the heat of the moment, people are wild for counting the exact number of Han, Uyghur, women, children, bakery-shop owners, and lovers of interstellar Nike-boots, but looking back, it should be in there only once if at all. Seb az86556 (talk) 01:51, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is done. I rewrote the section, excising all the "interim" death tolls (but I kept them, commented out, in a bare-bones fashion... a sentence just saying "over t he next few days it rose to X, then to Y, then to Z..." etc.). Among other things, I removed the bit about bullet wounds—this only seems relevant if we are going to have a more in-depth discussion of what weapons are used, and I can no longer find any NPOV sources discussing that (just try searching Google for Urumqi riot bricks or something and see what you get). I'm also not sure if the following is necessary:

Li Chunyang, spokesman for the Xinjiang government said that the death toll was dynamic because some victims being treated at the hospitals were in critical situation.^[1]

It may have been useful at the time, but in retrospect I think any reader with a head on their shoulders can guess why the death toll was changing so often. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 02:37, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Right. I never understood that that line either, other than with "well duh! yeah, it's not like everyone dropped dead at once..." Suggest to just cut it. Seb az86556 (talk) 04:59, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also wondering if this is necessary:

Chinese authorities also accused an unidentified WUC member of inciting ethnic tensions by posting a violent CNN video on QQ; although the video was depicting the April 2007 stoning of a girl in Mosul, Iraq, the poster falsely labelled it "a Uyghur girl beaten to death", alleged that the perpetrators were Hans, and urged Uyghurs to "fight back with violence" and "repay blood with blood".^[2]

Isn't this giving undue weight to one of the many things that the gov't tracked down and said started the riots? What about the QQ messages, facebook groups, and stuff, all of which were just as widely reported on? If we include this, we should include them as well. IMO, if we can track down the sources, I think the best thing would be to sort of list all these things but not go into so much detail; ie, something like "the government claimed that Uyghurs abroad used QQ messages,^[3] facebook,^[4] and telephone calls^[5] to organize protesters, and used inflammatory videos^[6] and (other stuff)^[7] and (other stuff)^[8] to stir up ethnic tensions". rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 03:54, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Esp. unidentified WUC member is weird. Coulda been anyone from either side. Seb az86556 (talk) 05:01, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"unidentified" member is my wording, the best I could think of while I was in the middle of a big copyedit. The original wording was this (relevant part highlighted):

Xinhua subsequently blamed the rioting on a CNN video of a stoning of a young girl in Mosul, Iraq on 7 April 2007, which someone had reposted on QQ on 3 July 2009 falsely entitled "a Uyghur girl beaten to death". The post alleged the perpetrators were Hans, and urged Uyghurs to "fight back with violence" and "repay blood with blood". Chinese authorities alleged the entry was posted by a key member of the WUC in Germany to fan ethnic confrontation.

Not much better, I admit. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 06:43, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This, I think, is where the most cleanup is going to be needed. I have organized the links into subsections, each of which I will blurb about below. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 04:42, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

News coverage

I'm not sure how necessary these are anymore; they were relevant when this was breaking news, but now developments are rarer. The two Chinese ones have had some recent updates over the trial attention and the "needle" protests, but as time wears on I think these will be updated less and less. On the other hand, with the amount of coverage these riots have had, perhaps having these available as an option (for readers who want to do further research) may be a good idea. The BBC timeline also has some extra links to analyses and articles with background info.
Another issue with this section is that Uyghur coverage is specifically absent. There are two Chinese state-owned media outlets, and BBC (which we can presume to be relatively neutral, compared to Uyghur and Chinese sources), but no Uyghur. The thing that first comes to mind is RFA's Uyghur news (that one is in English, there is also one in Uyghur); RFA is biased to one extreme, but Xinhua and CCTV are biased to the other extreme and they are included. The only problem with including the RFA coverage page (and this is a major problem) is that it's for general "Uyghur" news, it's not a dedicated "Urumchi riots" page like the Xinhua and CCTV ones are; thus, as time goes on, other things will be on the front of this page and the Urumchi riot stuff will be buried more and more. I can't think of any good solution for this, unfortunately, and I believe there is no other widespread Uyghur media source (there are local newspapers for Kashkar, Urumchi, etc., but I doubt they can compare to BBC, Xinhua, CCTV, etc.). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 04:42, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Have you thought about WUC press releases? I mean we included Xinhua, we might as well include WUC. Jim101 (talk) 16:56, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think press releases would be appropriate as refs (in fact, I'm about to add some), not external links—since they're not really new information sources and they're not dynamic. Linking to WUC's main page would have the same problem as linking to RFA: it's not just about the riots, it's about everything, so a year from now everything on the front page will be irrelevant. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 20:02, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Photos

There was only the BBC gallery here; I added two more. I think it makes some sense to have links to photos, since we can't really put many up at all (I'm still trying to think if there's anything we might have a good fair-use claim on; more on that later) but I'm sure a lot of readers want to see them. My main concern is that linking these will also encourage people to link more, especially highly-inflammatory ones like that flickr gallery full of images of bikers with their faces smashed in and people with their backs cut wide open. These sorts of photo galleries, while they certainly have a gruesome allure to many of us, also have been widely used to incite ethnic hatred (the "those Uyghur terrorists killed the innocent Chinese people!" type) and need to be watched out for. I'm thinking the best thing may be to leave a hidden comment in that section saying not to add anything other than official galleries posted by official, national media (such as BBC). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 04:42, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Video

This is the hardest one, I think. Both of these videos would ideally be better as references for particular statements—particularly the Democracy Now one, which is basically like an article. On the other hand, that one at least has pictures and video footage of the riots and the July 7 demonstrations/mobs, which might give it usefulness beyond just the talking. I'm not really sure what to do with these. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 04:42, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, it looks like the problem of the Kadeer interview video has been solved without us having to make any decisions: the video is no longer on Youtube, so might as well remove the link. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 05:20, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've now also converted the Democracy Now video into a footnote in several parts of the text; now it might be ok to remove it from EL as well. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 15:44, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Analysis

I have removed the two links that were here (both of which, I remember, sparked controversy back when they were added). They are both single articles and would be more appropriate as refs, if anything, rather than external links. I converted the Engdahl one into a ref for one statement, so that's taken care of. I read the Raman one and found nothing useful there (again, it might have been a nice information source in early July, but now that we have so much other information it's clear that this one has nothing new, and much of what's in it is bunk anyway) so I removed it entirely. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 04:42, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As has been stated before throughout the archives, it would probably be nice to have some images in the article. So it might be good to start a list of pictures to maybe think about trying to make a fair-use claim on; most of these probably won't be usable, but right now this is just for brainstorming. There are several pictures that either illustrate the extent of the riots better than text alone can, or are iconic in their own light.

• early demonstrations/confrontation with police
• various photos of armed Han mobs [3][4]
• spiked rod guy (I remember in the Bovingdon talk, Bovingdon had a lot to say about the symbolism/telling-ness he found in this picture)
• Uighur woman in front of APCs

Also, I'm trying to see if I can get an account registered on meshrep.com, a Uyghur forum, to do some asking around. A lot of people post photos there (and right now there are some good ones of Urumqi today, one of my favorites is [http://www.meshrep.com/wforum/viewtopic.php?t=15961 this photo of a "wanted" notice), and while it's not clear which are photos people took by themselves and which are ones they just found somewhere, it wouldn't hurt to ask around and see if we could use any of these. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 07:22, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with all the photos in the list is that they only show what happened before and after the riots, but not during the riots...we desperatly need netural photos that shows what happened during the riot. Jim101 (talk) 16:53, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, but unfortunately I don't think such photos are ever going to be forthcoming, if they even exist at all. For the same reasons there aren't photos of things like the Virginia Tech massacre—when the events were going on, I think getting photos was probably the last thing on people's minds. That being said, at least one of those galleries (I think the Time one) does have a photo of a group of people rocking a bus to knock it over, and maybe a couple other things like that. Copyrighted, of course. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 19:49, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe some screen captures of amateur footage would also meet a fair-use claim. In particular, this (and, to a less extent, this one; posted to YouTube by the same person, but obviously not filmed in the same place...the voices in the background are Uyghur but I can't quite make out what they're saying) are pretty harrowing pictures of how big the demonstration was. (It also puts the "peaceful protest" idea in perspective a bit... they may have believed they were protesting peacefully and intended to remain peaceful, but if I were in a police officer's shoes I can easily imagine being intimidated seeing that crowd, making that much noice, coming straight at me.) The main issue with trying to get screen captures of these, though, is that I have no idea who owns the copyright; judging by the watermark, they were posted to Youku before being posted on Youtube, so maybe I can dig them up there. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 20:02, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Update: I'm having no luck finding the original videos on Youku; in fact, it looks like Youku has been "harmonized". If you search for the Urumqi riots, under a variety of search terms, you get next to nothing. (Ah, searching 7.5 乌鲁木齐 got more hits, but it looks like it's all just copies of news coverage.) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:42, 6 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking somewhere alone the line of showing damages without the bloody dead body...I remember a photo from Xinhua about paramedics running in front of hospital, that can be used to show that people do get hurt, and there are other photos about police cars getting torched and destroyed, that can be show to reinforce the point that it is a riot as oppose to protest.

Few words of cautions about using the mainstream photos. Without images showing what happened during the riot, placing images of Han mobs and the Uyghr woman protesters side by side implies that there is a pogrom against Uyghur under way. Also, the images about the fainted Uyghr protester does give people the wrong impression that cops shot her like what happened in Iran...anyway, all I can think of at the moment. Jim101 (talk) 23:30, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This photo about the blood stained car might be a good start point on showing what happened...add this photo with the screen caps about a bunch of people over turning police cars and the Xinhua photo with the paramedics running around I believe it should be a good description about what happened during the riot. Jim101 (talk) 23:55, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, that last one (from China Daily) might also be easier to claim fair use on, since its caption says it was released by police. I'm not sure what the copyright status is then, since it was released by police but published in China Daily; I'll raise the question at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:04, 6 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what the Xinhua one would add... it just shows that someone was in a hospital and beaten up badly. It's a nice action shot, of course, but I don't think it illustrates the scope of the riots very much. I'm most interested in pictures of crowds, such as the youtube video and the couple aerial shots I linked above...I think those, especially the video (oh, if only I could find its original source.....) do a really good job illustrating how large-scale this was, beyond what text can do (at some point, big numbers just become meaningless when you read them). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:42, 6 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I realize that this probably will get better organized once the dust settles, but there are some serious issues with the "Later riots" section. For one, the 'HK journalist incident' is given undue weight. That section occupies more space than the "later riots" themselves, which is supposed to be the subject of the section... I would say it is better to condense the HK journalist incident to about half its length and fit that under the "media" section, in conjunction to the paragraph about foreign journalists etc. How does that sound? Colipon+(Talk) 23:39, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Better yet, move it into "Media Coverage" section. Jim101 (talk) 23:55, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To be honest, I think the whole thing is too much; it reads like updates on rapidly-developing news. I'm hoping this weekend I can go through and trim it.

As for 'media coverage', I'm not sure it belongs there because it seems to be about treatment of journalists rather than actual media coverage itself, and plus it's about these "aftershock" riots rather than the main ones that are actually the subject of this article. Ohconfucius and I had a brief chat about this at User talk:Ohconfucius#Urumchi riots. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:24, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, after reading the para. again more closely, I think it may be better to remove the whole thing per NOT#NEWS. If these riots ever have their own article, this minor incident might fit in; here, though, it seems too trivial a detail. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:27, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I personally do think HK journalists deserve at least some mention. It sheds some light on the notorious practices against journalists by the Chinese authorities, which is a significant issue. But not to the extent of the weight it is being given now. Colipon+(Talk) 00:36, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes and no. I'm glad this is being brought up. I understand the concerns, and would say that it does warrant a paragraph, although it would appear to mess up the structure of the article a little. But we have time to fix it because the riots appear to be ongoing. I think the HK journalist thing is HUGE because it seems to be a stark contrast to a new-found policy of reporting freedom and transparency. I know HK journalists are a spoilt bunch who do not generally believe in privacy, and their tactics in their search for a scoop are at times reprehensible. However, the fact that the PRC, which has superficial claims to media freedom not only suppresses the news, but actually beats up accredited journalists and lies about certain key elements opens up a whole new can of worms. It isn't just about free speech any more. If the PRC doesn't deal with this decisively, it will start raising questions as to how the riots actually started. ie how much provocation did the peaceful protesters receive... Ohconfucius (talk) 02:14, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that the PRC frequently lies to get its way or get recognition globally is not a myth to anyone, and this part is actually examined by several academics and China experts in the "media" section already, especially Willy Lam. I would second Rjanag in that the current section just reads like a newspiece and therefore somewhat unencyclopedic at least in terms of style. To have it as a standalone paragraph without the proper context may be confusing to readers, not to mention it looks like very sloppy recentist organization. Colipon+(Talk) 09:57, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I take your point. We can always put it back when there are new developments which are relevant. Ohconfucius (talk) 10:06, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I concur with Colipon and Rjanag.Simonm223 (talk) 13:52, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]