Oral account of terrorism in Xinjiang to be published on Thursday

An oral account of the terrorist atrocities that broke out on a pedestrian street in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region 12 years ago, will be published by a group of researchers from Guangzhou, Guangdong province, on Thursday.

It will be released in a report titled "Victims and Survivors of Terrorism in China: An Oral History" at a seminar, according to a statement by the researchers from Jinan University in Guangzhou.

The statement has called this report the first of its kind in China.

The report was based on interviews with witnesses and survivors of the "2·28 terrorist attack" that broke out on Feb 28, 2012, in Yecheng county, Xinjiang.

Nine knife-and-ax-wielding terrorists killed 13 passersby and wounded 16, of whom two died later from their injuries.

The report was part of a project launched by the researchers in 2021 to catalog stories told by survivors of terrorist attacks in China, and it is the first in a series of such reports to be released. The researchers said they have already amassed texts of more than 1 million Chinese characters and 90 hours of audio and video clips after interviewing more than 60 witnesses and survivors of terrorist attacks across Xinjiang.

The project was launched as significant progress has been made in anti-terrorism and deradicalization efforts, the researchers said in the statement.

"Through the oral accounts of victims and eyewitnesses of terrorist attacks, it aims to partially reconstruct the circumstances of those events, reminding people to stay vigilant and cherish the hard-won peace and stability in society."

The project will continue to seek out eyewitnesses and victims of terrorist attacks nationwide, focusing on the experiences and stories of this particular group, it added.

The researchers also welcomed more witnesses to share their stories by contacting o_icbg@jnu.edu.cn.