URUMQI: At about 8 pm on July 5, high school teacher Zhao Mindong and his wife were in a taxi on their way to go shopping in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

When they passed the city's Tuanjie Road, they found their vehicle blocked by other cars.

A group of rioters set upon their taxi, smashing it with stones and clubs. "It was too sudden for me to feel scared. The first thing I thought of was 'why'?" Zhao said. The couple's cabbie, himself a member of the Uygur ethnic group, tried to protect his two passengers from getting hurt by the mob and was beaten up himself.