In China's far west the 'perfect police state' is emerging

It was Friday, the Islamic day of assembly, but outside Kashgar’s Id Kah mosque on Liberation Avenue it was the growl of diesel engines that filled the air not a muezzin’s wistful cry. One by one armoured personnel carriers, some with machine guns poking from their turrets, rolled towards People’s Square where a 12-metre statue of Mao Zedong was preparing to preside over the latest in a series of tub-thumping “anti-terror” rallies to be held here in the heartlands of China’s Muslim Uighur minority this year. Open-backed lorries packed with heavily-armed troops joined the procession, red and yellow propaganda banners draped from their sides. Read more