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Xin Jiang Province (western Silk Road)

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  • Xin Jiang Province (western Silk Road)

    I just wanted to post this, as it's pretty important information if you're planning on traveling to the rather remote, and interesting, Xin Jiang province. I had had a hell of a trip to the area, more on that later.

    URUMQI, China: The authorities in the troubled far-western Chinese region of Xinjiang are telling people who want to watch the Olympic torch as it passes through the area to stay at home and tune in to the television instead.

    Spectators, who in other parts of China have thronged streets to glimpse the torch, were also banned from climbing trees or gathering on bridges under which the flame will pass, state media said Monday.

    The steps are a measure of the sensitivity that surrounds Xinjiang, an oil-rich border region that is home to the Muslim Uighur people, some of whom Beijing blames for attacks agitating for an independent state.

    "Considering that too many people will cause a lack of safety, we are recommending that everyone watches on the television from home," the official Xinjiang Daily quoted the Communist Party chief of the region's sports administration, Li Guangming, as saying.

    The torch, whose progress around the world has been dogged by protests against Chinese policies, will be paraded through Xinjiang's regional capital Tuesday before heading to the mainly Uighur city of Kashi, not far from the frontier with Pakistan and Afghanistan.

    A three-day tour of Tibet was supposed to precede this leg but the schedule was altered after a three-day suspension due to the earthquake in Sichuan. A curtailed trip to the Himalayan region will now follow after the torch leaves Xinjiang, organizers said.

    Xinjiang is home to eight million Uighurs, many of whom resent the growing presence and economic grip of the Han Chinese. The government insists only a tiny minority support the separatists.

    Other newspapers warned that "uncivilized behavior" would be "appropriately dealt with."

    "Do not shout slogans that damage the image of the nation or of the city," The Urumqi Evening News said, outlining a long list of banned behavior, including taking pets along or setting off fireworks.

    China says it disrupted at least two terrorist plots based in Xinjiang this year, one involving an attempt to blow up an aircraft flying to Beijing and another to kidnap foreigners and carry out suicide attacks during the Olympics.
    Historically, which means in the nineties, Xin Jiang province was the area that spawned a lot of terrorist attacks that occurred in Beijing, but was not widely reported in the news.
    Experienced Community organizer. Yeah, let's choose him to run the free world. It will be historic. What could possibly go wrong...

    "You're just a jaded cynical mother****er...." Jeffpeg

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