Following the Chinese 2014 Kunming attack, in which 31 people were killed, probably by Xinjiang secessionists, Chinese state media and Chinese social media users criticized major Western media outlets that placed quotation marks around the word "terrorism" in news articles about the event. While some Chinese Internet users interpreted the quotation marks as attribution to the statements of the Chinese government, others accused the Western media of sympathizing with the separatists. China accused "Western commentators, with their focus on Uighur rights, of hypocrisy and double standards on terrorism."