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BEIJING: The normally bustling mosques of China’s Urumqi city were ordered shut on the main Muslim day of prayer on Friday with police out in force to prevent new outbreaks of deadly ethnic unrest.Uighur Muslims said they had been directed to pray at home, as armed forces saturated the streets of the northwest Xinjiang region’s capital five days after clashes that authorities said left 156 people dead.
“The government said there would be no Friday prayers,” said a Uighur man named Tursun outside the Hantagri mosque, one of the oldest in the capital, as about 100 policemen carrying machine guns and batons stood guard nearby.
Eight million Uighurs have long complained about religious, political and economic repression under Chinese rule, and this deep-set anger spilled out on Sunday in protests that quickly turned violent.
The Chinese government said 156 people were killed and more than 1,000 others were injured, as Uighur Muslims attacked people from China’s dominant Han ethnic group.