As I wrote in a previous post, one of Beijing’ more interesting reactions to the Iran protests was to single out Twitter for its role in the protests. Now, not surprisingly, Twitter has been blocked since yesterday afternoon, presumably in reaction to the Urumqi riots Sunday and their bloody suppression. Nur Bekri, chairman of the Xinjiang regional government reportedly said in a televised address yesterday that the hugely popular IM service QQ as well as online forums had been used by outsiders to stir up the protests.(As we said in our story, comment on the internet is being heavily censored, tho as this nice AFP story lays out, Chinese netizens are stilling managing to get some views up.)
Meanwhile, few more details of what happened and how have emerged. For example, though Xinhua is reporting the numbers of men and women killed (129 and 27), there’s still no indication of ethnicity, which would obviously give an indication of whether demonstrators/rioters (you choose) were shot by security forces. The delay leads me to wonder whether we will ever be told.
My colleague Austin is in Urumqi and will be reporting what he can later today.