
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, February 21, 1994                   TAG: 9402210045
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: BEIJING                                LENGTH: Short

CHINA SAYS 49 DIED IN MUSLIM STRIFE

In a rare confirmation of unrest among China's Muslims, official sources said Sunday that 49 people were killed when paramilitary police units moved in to suppress fighting between rival religious groups outside a Ningxia province mosque in May.

The official New China News Agency said 22 people, including a prominent Ningxia province political leader and two Muslim scholars, were sentenced to long prison terms this month after they were convicted on charges that included murder and "unlawfully buying guns and ammunition" in connection with the incident.

Chinese authorities claimed that they confiscated 5,442 guns and 21 homemade cannons after what they described as "gang fighting" in Xiji, 700 miles southwest of Beijing.

The Ningxia incident is the bloodiest in a series of Muslim disturbances that occurred in western China last year. Incidents involving China's Muslims - who number between 20 million and 40 million, according to various estimates - are a sensitive issue with the Chinese Communist government, particularly in light of Muslim nationalist and fundamentalist movements in the former southern Soviet republics and other regions of Central Asia.

On Oct. 7, Chinese military forces stormed a mosque in Xining, capital of Qinghai province, and arrested Muslim leaders who the government claimed had "assaulted local party and government offices, smashed police vehicles and besieged and attacked people and security and armed policemen."

Keywords:
FATALITY

by CNB