Date May 19, 1989 (UTC+8) | Non-fatal injuries 150 | |
Location People's Square, Ürümqi, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China | ||
The 1989 Ürümqi unrest, also known as May 19, 1989, incident (Chinese: 1989年乌鲁木齐“5.19”骚乱事件) took place in the city of Ürümqi, capital of Xinjiang in China in May, 1989, which began with Muslim protesters marched and finally escalated into violent attack against Xinjiang CPC office tower at People's Square on May 19, 1989.
The immediate cause was a book called Sexual Customs (《性风俗》) published in 1987 which purported to describe the sexual life of Muslims and provoked some Hui people from Gansu, Ningxia and Xinjiang. The protesters, mainly Uyghur and Hui, initially conducted orderly march in the previous days and demanded for the government to destroy Sexual Customs and punish the book authors. However, the protest ended up rioting, where nearly 2,000 rioters overthrew cars, smashed windows and some attacked staff at CPC office. The government dispatched 1000 policemen and 1200 armed police soldiers to disperse the crowd and arrested 173.