During the unrest, previously unknown pro-independence and annexationist groups like the Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center (SMHRIC) became sources for foreign media of unconfirmed allegations of tensions, leading China to criticize overseas groups who it says are "trying to play up this incident for ulterior motives". Initial Western media reports described the protests as "ethnic unrest" and likened them to the 2008 Tibetan unrest and the July 2009 Ürümqi riots, but the director of SMHRIC said that the protests were focused on legal rights for herders, and that they "didn't mention higher autonomy or independence." An editorial in the Communist Party's Global Times criticized SMHRIC as having "little connection to the local situation", and criticized foreign media for reading ethnic politics into the protests, saying that "the protests saw no violence between different ethnic groups".