I had no idea this was going on.  Months ago, I found the name of a Uyghur friend on facebook and sent him a friend request.  When he didn't answer, I thought something was up, but I didn't know how entirely it was up. 

I didn't know that internet service had been blocked after ethnic rioting in Xinjiang province in July 2009.  Even email was unavailable until late 2009.  People who needed email for their jobs or businesses had to leave the province.  Full Internet service wasn't restored until Friday, May 14, 2010.  Xinjiang was without internet access for ten long months as reported in the New York Times . 

The rioting was tragic, many Han were killed, and while I grieve this, I understand the Uyghur's anger. 

A Han father who migrated to Urumqi at the encouragement of the government lost his son and only child in the rioting when the son went out to rescue the fruit cart - the family business.  I saw these Han people when I traveled in Xinjiang and they were hard-working, poor people who had uprooted from their impoverished villages in the hopes of making a decent living in Xinjiang.  The bereft father in this article says, "This place would be nothing without the Han."  

I disagree.  According to the Uyghurs, it was their country before China annexed it in 1948.  The Uyghurs had their own language, their own culture, their own government.  That's why they're fighting mad. 
Photo courtesy of New York Times