Orange County News Blog

Dana Rohrabacher believes missiles should be pointed at China that way.

"Police have been watching my home for two days now," Ilham Tohti, an economics professor at the Central Nationalities University in Beijing, said Tuesday in a telephone interview, two days after deadly clashes in the northwestern city of Urumqi killed at least 156 people. "They are calling me now, and I have to go. I may be out of touch for some time."

The 40-year-old also told RFA's Uyghur service, "I wasn't involved in anything, but I am not safe. The police are calling me." He then hung up. Subsequent phone calls rang unanswered.

Tohti's blog, Uyghur Online, had specifically been targeted in a speech Sunday by the governor of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), Nur Bekri, as an instigator of the clashes. Tohti's last blog entry, published through a U.S. server at 10:52 a.m. Beijing time on Tuesday and now blocked inside China, reads: "As the editor of Uyghur Online, I want only to tell Nur Bekri, 'You are right, everything you say is right, because you will decide everything. I have already offended too many powerful people, including yourself and others whom I don't want to and don't dare to offend. But right or wrong, there will be justice."

That same day, Rohrabacher posted on his congressional website a press release detailing the contest of his letter to Obama. Passages follow . . .

During our holiday season as we celebrated the Fourth of July, there have been alarming reports of violence against, and killings of, hundreds of Uighurs. If indeed there has been a massacre of Uyghurs, I would hope that you demand to know who is responsible...

This is a case that calls out for unambiguous condemnation on the part of the United States. Your words will make a difference one way or the other and will be remembered.

Rohrabacher says he also sent a joint letter with Rep. William Delahunt (D-MA) to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asking for "strong condemnation" of the Chinese government's violent actions and investigation into who is responsible for ordering the attacks.

Delahunt is the chairman and Rohrabacher the vice chairman of the House International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight Subcommittee, which recently held a series of hearings on the persecution of Uyghurs in China and the wrongful detention of 22 Uyghurs at Guantanamo Bay. During testimony, the subcommittee learned that Chinese intelligence officers were granted permission by the Bush administration to interrogate Uyghur detainees during a week-long visit to Guantanamo Bay, despite the fact that China has been engaged in systematic oppression and violence against the Uyghurs in their native Xinjiang province.