Senior Uygur official in China's restive Xinjiang province investigated for graft
PUBLISHED : Sunday, 28 June, 2015, 11:29pm
UPDATED : Sunday, 28 June, 2015, 11:29pm
Reuters in Beijing
Riot police take part in a security drill in Urumqi. Hundreds of people have been killed in the region in the past few years, most in violence between Uygurs and ethnic majority Han Chinese. Photo: Reuters
A senior ethnic Uygur official in the unruly far western region of Xinjiang is being investigated for suspected serious "discipline violations", the Communist Party's anti-graft watchdog said on Sunday, using a euphemism for corruption.
Alimjan Maimaitiming, 55, is secretary general of the regional government. The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection gave no other details.
According to his official biography he is from Cherchen, also known by its Chinese name of Qiemo, in the heavily Uygur deep south of Xinjiang. He had previously been editor-in-chief of the official Xinjiang Daily.
Hundreds of people have been killed in the region in the past few years, most in violence between the Muslim Uygur people who call Xinjiang home and ethnic majority Han Chinese.
In March, the CCDI announced on its website that Li Zhi, who was also formerly deputy chief of Xinjiang's people's congress, was suspected of serious violations of party discipline and law, a term that usually refers to corruption.
Li, 64, became party chief of Urumqi, in November 2006, but was sacked two months after riots on July 5, 2009.
Ethnic tensions between Han and Uygurs had erupted into clashes that left 197 dead and more than 1,600 injured in the city.
President Xi Jinping has vowed to combat deep-seated corruption since assuming power in late 2012, although parts of the country with big minority populations like Xinjiang and Tibet have largely escaped the campaign so far.
The ethnic Uygur mayor of Hotan, also in Xinjiang's deep south, was put under investigation for graft last year.
The officially atheist Communist Party has striven to appoint and promote more minority officials but, in Xinjiang especially, the Han Chinese-dominated party faces deep suspicion.
Recent attacks have targeted Uygurs aligned with the government, including the killing of a state-backed imam last July.
