2014 Kunming Attack
 Kunming railway station | |
| Date | 1 March 2014 |
|---|---|
| Location | Kunming, Yunnan, China |
| Blamed on | Xinjiang, Muslims |
| Type | • Mass murder •  “Terrorism” |
| Deaths | 35 |
| Injured (non-fatal) | 143 |
| Description | A possible deep event in where assailants pulled out knifes at a train station and stabbed random passengers. Although no group claimed responsibility, Muslim Xinjiang "terrorists" were blamed. As official reaction, the Chinese government ramped up their efforts to mass incarcerate at least 1 million Muslims in Xinjiang. |
2014 Kunming Attack was an attack by a group of people on a train station in the Chinese city of Kunming. Although no group claimed reasonability, the Chinese government blamed the Xinjiang Muslim community.
Official Narrative
| Telegraph's Tom Phillips reporting from the scene of the recalled moments of fear and chaos said the attack recalled the fear and chaos felt after the attack on the World Trade Center in New York on 11 September 2001.
"This is very much being seen here as a 9/11 style event. It's by far the worse incident of its kind in China and it will have a huge impact on what will happen here," he said. |
A group of eight knife-wielding terrorists attacked passengers in the Kunming Railway Station in Kunming, Yunnan, China, on 1 March 2014. The attackers pulled out long-bladed knives and stabbed and slashed passengers at random. The assailants killed 31 civilians and injured more than 140 people. Four assailants were shot to death by police on the spot and one injured perpetrator was captured. Police announced on 3 March that the six-man, two-woman group had been neutralized after the arrest of three remaining suspects.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack and no ties to any organization have been identified, in effect the group was a singular terror cell. Xinhua News Agency and the government of Kunming said that the attack had been linked to Sunni extremists which were a faction of Xinjiang separatists. Police said that they had confiscated a black, hand-painted East Turkestan flag at the scene, which is associated with the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region for which the Muslim ethnic minority seek independence from China.
Conviction
3 "extremists" were sentenced to death within 6 months.[1]
Aftermath
Before the event most Chinese police were unarmed, except their batons. Afterwards, the government decided it must make weapons more readily available to regular police, leading to prospect of abuses. It has also increased the risk of mistakes by poorly trained officers who are unfamiliar with weapons. After the arming, Chinese media reported on at least two deaths in police shootings where local witnesses suggested the use of deadly force may not have been justified.[2]
