Xinjiang protests.

The Free Tibet web site has to its credit highlighted the current actions of the Chinese state in Xinjiang. What we are seeing in TV news media reports in typical Chinese state repression and brutality.

FREE TIBET: “On Sunday 5 July, demonstrations in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, were violently put down by Chinese police and armed forces, according to international media. Xinhua, the Chinese state news agency, reports that more than 140 civilians were killed and 816 injured after the most serious civil unrest since the Spring 2008 protests in Tibet.
The situation in Urumqi ostensibly escalated after Uighur protestors, who were calling for investigations on an altercation between Uighur and Chinese workers in a local factory, had refused to end their protests. More than 8 million Uighur live in Xinjiang, which was incorporated into the People’s Republic of China in 1955.
Like in Spring 2008 in Tibet, Beijing’s censorship has proven effective – websites including Twitter and mobile telephone networks have been closed down. Information is difficult to source and accounts of the incident are almost entirely limited to Chinese state media sources. With unconfirmed accounts of the use of lethal force against civilians the international community must call for access for independent observers and the media.”

06/07/09: | Free Tibet.

Housing ‘not favouring migrants’

So now we have the evidence that exposes BNP lies in regard to the allocation of social housing. Racist bigots however are difficult to challenge even with evidence like this. The fact is that “there is no evidence that new arrivals in the UK are able to jump council housing queues.” The shame is that only recently once again Gordon Brown sought to utilize a BNP slogan to qualify his social housing policy – if only our prime minister had consulted the Equality and Human Rights Commission first. The fact is there is an insufficient supply of social housing and it is time that the Labour government promoted a building programme instead of spinning the issue – do something!

BBC NEWS: “There is no evidence that new arrivals in the UK are able to jump council housing queues, an Equality and Human Rights Commission report says.

Once they settle and are entitled to help, it adds, the same proportion live in social housing as UK-born residents.

The prime minister has said the law will change so that local people get priority for social housing in England.

EHRC chairman Trevor Phillips blamed a “failure of social housing supply” for concerns that migrants jumped queues…”more

via BBC NEWS | Politics | Housing ‘not favouring migrants’.