Uyghur identity bound up with religious struggle

More than 150 people were killed during clashes on the weekend between the Uyghur Muslim minority, security forces and the country's majority Han Chinese population in the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang. The website Rue89 looks at the ethnic strife endemic to the region: "Since 1949 Xinjiang has firmly been in the hands of the central power in Beijing, despite its official status as an autonomous region. As early as 1950 a massive influx of Han Chinese was launched. Their arrival has created two societies with contradictory values. ... In the Han district everyone lives just like they do in eastern China, far from the increasingly stringent Islam, which in turn offers a refuge for a growing number of marginalised Uyghurs. The question of Uyghur national identity is increasingly bound up with religious struggle, as it is elsewhere in this unstable and agitated part of Central Asia."

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