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Reviewer: Ruslik0 (talk · contribs) 17:32, 21 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The article generally satisfies GA criteria. I still see a few issues:

  1. The 2011 Hotan attack was a series of coordinated bomb and knife attacks ... Why a series? This was just one attack on a police station.
  2. The attackers then yelled religious slogans, including ones associated with Jihadism ... Jihadism is not mentioned in the main text. See WP:LEAD.
  3. In the 'Attack' section. Do "the men proceeded to take down the Chinese flag ..." after they came under fire or before? The former seems to be rather strange to me.
  4. In refs 12 and 19 the links are dead. You should find replacements.
  5. In refs 5 and 17 there is no information about authors.
Ruslik_Zero 17:32, 21 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  1. I changed the wording to refer it as a singular attack. The confusion just comes from an attempt at varied prose.
  2. I attributed a source for the characterization of the slogans in the text.
  3. The flag came down before the police fire; I reordered the sentences to make this clearer.
  4. Refs replaced.
  5. ref 5: The Economist does not attribute its articles to individual authors as a matter of policy. The SCMP (ref 17) usually does, but in this case, it did not. For verifiability purposes, I added a second source with author to ref 17's statement. However, they're only reporting on a press release from an advocacy group, so the author of the news story is not that important.
Shrigley (talk) 23:52, 21 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]


I see a few more issues that are somewhat more significant:

Lede:

  • The views of the exile Uyghur groups are not descirbed adequately, either in the lede or elsewhere. Meanwhile, a number of the assertions made in the lede come from Chinese authorities and official media (some are gleaned from interviews with witnesses from foreign media, but not all). The article should make clear the source of such claims, particularly given that official Chinese media is not considered especially reliable on these matters.
  • It would be helpful to have a little more on both background (eg. source of Uyghur greivances, refugee issues that may have been associated with the attacks, etc), and aftermath (eg. intensified security presence, greater restrictions on religious practice and expression, etc.)

Background:

  • "Uyghurs tend to have less wealth than their Han counterparts; as a result, many Uyghurs are unemployed and subsist on Chinese social welfare benefits" — Probably not the most neutral account of this dynamic. The economic disparity among Han and Uyghurs should be noted, but this phrasing does not explain where the economic disparities come from, or how it's a source of frustration for the Uyghurs. Also, I can't locate the article that is used to support this.
  • "Hotan had recently been celebrating the opening of the city's first passenger-train service in June." — This is not how the source puts it. The Economist wrote that it was officials in Khotan who were celetrating the passenger train. Officials are not representative of the whole city; to the contrary, many Uyghur feel deep unease about these infrastructure projects and the accompanying influx of ethnic Han that they facilitate
  • "Xinjiang has been experiencing an Islamic revival, manifest in decreased alcohol consumption and increased beard length in Hotan." — This statement does not appear to be supported by either of the sources provided
  • “...many religious Hotan women of an older age began to wear a long face-concealing Islamic garment, which is more similar to the uniform of the female Chechen suicide bomber than to traditional Uyghur attire. Authorities became concerned with the fashion trend after a spate of murders and robberies outside Hotan where the perpetrators wore face-conceiling veils” — This sentence seems to take some minor liberties, and could probably be written to more closely follow the source. For instance, the statement that the ban was catalyzed by murders and robberies isn’t very well supported; in the article it is attributed only as a quote from a local woman.
  • “Uyghur separatist attacks usually take the form of IEDs and vehicle-borne bombs in heavily-policed areas” — Recommend making this a little closer to the source (“Previous incidents in Xinjiang have mostly involved roadside bombs or assailants detonating vehicle-borne devices near police patrols.”)

General comments: This section fails to address other sources of Uyghur greivances, such as general restrictions on religious freedom, economic inequality, fears over cultural assimilation, refugee issues, etc. This information is valuable in informing the context here. It may be worth consulting relevant sections from the Terrorism in the People's Republic of China page for some more ideas and high quality secondary sources that discuss these issues.

Attack:

  • “According to a subsequent investigation, a group of 18 antigovernment "religious extremists" arrived in Hotan from Kashgar on July 16, two days before the attack; they brought "several dozen different knives including cleavers, axes and switchblades" with them” — Investigation conducted by who?
  • “The guard, Memet Eli, was 25 years old and engaged to be married in September.” — Statements whose only source is Chinese state-run media should probably be identified as such.
  • General comment: As with the lede, it’s important to quality the source of information that has not been independently verified (ie. that come exclusively from Chinese state-run media, local authorities, Ministry of Public Security, etc.) Also, as with the lede, there is very little attempt made to describe the views of the Uyghur exile community, which I understand has disputed many aspects of the official account. A NPOV would seem to demand this. The World Uyghur Congress alleged that “the shooting took place not at a police station, but in Khotan's main bazaar, when more than 100 local Uyghurs peacefully demonstrated against illegal seizures of land and the forcible disappearances of relatives by Chinese security forces during unrest in 2009. Police opened fire on the demonstrators, leading to a clash between demonstrators and police.”[1] This information is not found in the article. The coverage in reliable sources also deals with this; for instance, the Hindu article wrote[2] “An exiled Uighur group called the World Uyghur Congress said on Wednesday this week's clash was sparked by a protest by local residents who had called on the police to release information about their missing relatives, believed to be in police custody.” This is not mentioned at all on this page. Similarly, the article (and many others) note that “Many Uighur groups have, in the past, accused the government of portraying local protests and ethnic unrest as being driven by separatist groups in order to justify security clampdowns.” This is also not reflected on the page.

Reaction

  • “An expert at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations said that the attack aimed to create fear in the public.” — May be worth noting that the CICIR is a government-run think tank
  • “The anti-China pro-Uyghur independence World Uyghur Congress” — calling the WUC ‘anti-China’ seems quite unnecessary, and not exactly neutral. I don’t think the WUC would describe themselves in this manner. I recommend referring to the Economist’s description of them as “An exile group campaigning for Xinjiang's independence”
  • “the WUC, which allegedly supports anti-China guerillas operating along the Afghanistan border region” — According to who? I don’t see this in any of the sources cited, and I have not come across any credible reports that assert this kind of connection
  • Information on the ETIM leader’s claiming responsibility doesn’t seem to fit too well in this section. Might fit better within a separate section (perhaps under ‘attack’)


Oh yes, it tells:

many religious Hotan women of an older age began to wear a long face-concealing Islamic garment, which is more similar to the uniform of the female Chechen suicide bomber

This way all Uyghur Islamic women are describes as terrorist supporters. Please do not WP:SOAP, especially on ethnically sensitive subjects. Good article??? My very best wishes (talk) 18:25, 22 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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