EU scrambles for information on China violence
The EU has for the past 48 hours kept mostly silent on the ethnic clashes in China, as diplomats struggle to pin down the facts.
With at least 156 deaths and 1,400 arrests after fighting erupted between ethnic Uighur and Han Chinese people on Sunday (5 July), the unrest is the most serious to hit the country since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
Join EUobserver today
Get the EU news that really matters
Instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.
Choose your plan
... or subscribe as a group
Already a member?
Amnesty International has called for an "independent and impartial enquiry" into the events amid fears the EU will treat its giant trade partner with kid gloves.
"We shouldn't be seeing these issues undermined by trade or other economic considerations. There should be no special cases," the advocacy group's Brussels director, Nicolas Berger, said.
The EU reaction has so far been limited to remarks by outgoing EU parliament president Hans-Gert Poettering and a European Commission spokeswoman.
"We call for an end to violence and for access to independent media. We regret the loss of every individual life and the suffering of injured persons," commission spokeswoman Christiane Hohmann told EUobserver on Tuesday.
"The news which is emerging of how these protests were handled is disturbing," Mr Poettering said on Monday.
The Swedish presidency has circulated a draft EU statement to member states but the official reaction has been hampered by lack of access to information.
The fighting in Urumqi in the remote Xinjiang province is taking place over 4,000 km away from EU diplomatic missions in Beijing, with Chinese authorities limiting access to foreign press and observers.
"Some of the embassies have contacts in the region and we are trying to use these as best we can," one EU diplomat told this website.
"We have been voicing our concern over the treatment of the Uighur minority since the 1980s. There is no question of treating China as a 'special case'."
Amnesty International says the violence began after a peaceful Uighur demonstration against Chinese police.
It accuses Beijing of "systematic and extensive human rights violations" against the Muslim minority, including restrictions on freedom of worship, language and arbitrary arrests.
China is the EU's second largest export partner after the US. But bilateral relations have frayed in recent months.
Beijing in December abruptly cancelled an EU summit after French president Nicolas Sarkozy met with Tibetan dissident the Dalai Lama in Poland.
The China summit eventually took place in the Czech Republic in May. But the meeting was marked by Beijing's warning for Europe not to meddle in its internal problems.
"In conducting strategic co-operation between China and the EU, the most important thing is to stick to the principles of mutual respect and not interfere in each other's internal affairs," Chinese premier Wen Jiabao said in Prague.