BEIJING – Teams of police patrolled streets in the western region of Xinjiang as part of stringent security controls Monday on the one-year anniversary of China’s worst ethnic violence in decades. Despite tensions, there was no apparent sign of unrest.

An ethnic Han Chinese man who runs the Little West Gate Family Hotel in the regional capital of Urumqi said his family spent the day indoors as a precaution. The man, who would only give his surname Zhang, said shoppers had to go through airport-style security checks at the open air market in the city’s center.

Bags also were searched at airports, train stations and bus stops, said a receptionist surnamed Fang at the Yilong Hotel.

Long-standing tensions between Xinjiang’s minority Uighurs and majority Han Chinese migrants flared into open violence in Urumqi one year ago, triggered by the deaths of Uighur factory workers in the country’s south.

The government — which accused overseas Uighur groups of plotting the violence, something they deny — said 197 people were killed.

In response to the violence, Beijing suspended the region’s Internet, international telephone and text messaging links for more than six months.

The government arrested hundreds of people and sentenced about two dozen to death.

 

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