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Work resumes at Guangdong factory

(Xinhua/China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-08 13:31

Workers from Han and Uygur ethnic groups sit together while working at production lines at the Xuri Toy Factory in Shaoguan, south China's Guangdong province, where a brawl between hundreds of people from Han and Uygur ethnic groups led to two deaths early June 26. [Xinhua]

Authorities detained 15 suspects in connection with the fight, Liu Guoqiang, the deputy director with the public security bureau of Shaoguan, was quoted by Xinhua as saying. Two of those arrested were accused of spreading the rumors that led to the incendiary situation.

Xinjiang authorities believe overseas groups used the ethnic tension in Shaoguan to incite Sunday's riot in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

At least 156 people have been killed there and more than 1,000 injured.

About 16,000 of the 18,000 workers at the toy factory had returned to work by yesterday, including more than 700 workers from Xinjiang, local sources said.

Jin Ling, a female worker from Nanchang in Jiangxi province, left the factory on June 27 but returned the next day.

"When I came back, I found the production line open but many workers were absent," she said.

Xuri's officials hired 800 migrant workers in May in Shufu county, which is under the jurisdiction of Kashgar in western Xinjiang, according to a press release issued by the municipal government of Shaoguan.

The hiring was in response to the central government's policy of encouraging firms to hire minorities from the western region to reduce the income gap between the area and other parts of China.

"Many people here now feel very upset about the events in Urumqi, as they had never intended to arouse such unrest," the unnamed toy factory worker said.

More than 700 workers from Xinjiang are now taking shelter in a vacant factory in Shaoguan's Baitu town, about 4 km from Xuri's factory. During a visit there yesterday, China Daily found former Xuri workers walking and talking freely while Xinjiang migrant workers guarding the gates.

Police were monitoring the situation.

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