Unrest in China after Mongol herder's death

by TK

BEIJING (AFP) - Hundreds of ethnic Mongols have protested in China this week over the killing of a shepherd that has sparked online calls for even bigger future demonstrations, human rights organisations have said.

The unrest in China's Inner Mongolia region was sparked by the May 10 death of a herder named Mergen, who was run over by a truck driven by an ethnic Han Chinese, the US-based Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Centre said.

Mergen and other herders had been attempting to block a caravan of coal-hauling trucks in the Xilingol area, angered by an influx of miners that was displacing ethnic Mongol herders, destroying grazing lands and killing livestock, it said in a statement issued Tuesday.

Fury over the incident caused hundreds of Mongols to take to the streets in protest in the Right Ujumchin Banner in Xilingol on Monday, it said, quoting sources in the region.

A banner is a traditional Mongol land division and is equivalent to a county.

Photos showing protesters squaring off with police were posted on overseas rights websites.

Bloggers also were circulating a call online for a large-scale protest in the regional capital Hohhot on May 30, the group said.

A woman official who answered the phone at the Xilingol government office confirmed that protesters had again showed up in Right Ujumchin Banner on Wednesday but had left before noon. She declined to provide further details.

AFP calls to other government and police offices in the area went unanswered.

Many of China's roughly six million ethnic Mongols, who have cultural and ethnic ties with Mongolia to the north, complain of political and cultural repression by Beijing, and say their nomadic, pastoral lifestyle is being extinguished.

Some refer to Inner Mongolia as "Southern Mongolia".

A key irritant is what many Mongols say is an influx of members of China's dominant Han ethnic group triggered by the region's rich coal and other energy deposits.

The Xilingol government said in a statement shortly after Mergen's death that four people had been arrested for the killing and destruction of pasture lands.

Source:http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/9518406/unrest-in-china-after-mongol-herders-death-group/