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Mongolian
music concerts cancelled over fears of tensions on Chinese
campus |
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Agence France Presse -- English
November 2, 2004
Tuesday 2:34 PM GMT
Two concerts by a Mongolian folk music group were cancelled in
late October at a university in northern China's Inner Mongolia
province due to fears of ethnic problems, students and a human
rights group said Tuesday.
"The concerts of the Hurd were cancelled because the group is
linked to a Mongolian tribe that is opposed to the privatisation
of the mausoleum of Genghis Khan," a student who asked not to be
identified told AFP by telephone.
Some 2,000 students had gathered to attend the concert.
Other students at the Inner Mongolia Normal University in Hohhot,
the capital of Inner Mongolia, confirmed the incident.
They said police blocked access to the campus on October 30, the
date of the planned concert, from morning until midnight, only
allowing students to enter after checking their IDs.
"We can get out of the school, but we have to show our student
ID to get in because they want to prevent other people from
entering our school," said a Han Chinese student.
"There are still 20 or 30 policemen around our school gate."
Anti-riot police were in the school and on other campuses in the
city, according to the sources.
Rumors of arrests of ethnic Mongolian students were circulating
on the campus but could not be verified.
University authorities refused to comment.
The New York-based Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information
Center said the concerts were supposed to be the first
performances in Inner Mongolia by the group from Ulan Bator,
capital of neighbouring Mongolia.
A concert was also scheduled to be held on October 22 at another
school.
In that case, the organization and the students said, local
authorities also feared trouble.
Several Mongolian students were detained and many were
questioned for organizing a gathering to watch the concert, the
group said.
The Hurd, a popular band from Ulan Bator, is linked to the
Darhad, a Mongol tribe which has been at the vanguard of
protests against government plans to privatize the mausoleum of
Genghis Khan in Ordos, in western Inner Mongolia.
The site has been maintained by the tribe for hundreds of years,
and they also live on tourism profits from the grave claimed by
China to be where the Mongolian conqueror was buried, the group
said.
"Tensions between the government and the Mongols, especially the
Mongol students is escalating," said the wife of a jailed
Mongolian dissident, as quoted by a statement issued by the
Southern Mongolia Human Rights Information Center.
China claims Genghis Khan's mausoleum is located in Ejin Horo
Banner on the Ordos highlands, but the burial site of Khan, who
died in 1227, is disputed.
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Changing
Inner Mongolia: Pastoral Mongolian Society and the Chinese State (Oxford
Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology)
