Home > News Archive > China sentences six more to death for Xinjiang unrest

China sentences six more to death for Xinjiang unrest

By Marianne Barriaux | AFP

A frame grab taken from footage shot on 14 October 2009, shows defendants, involved in ethnic riots in far western Xinjiang region in July, during their trial in Urumqi, Xinjiang Autonomous Region. A Chinese court on Thursday handed out a further three death sentences to people convicted of violent crimes during ethnic rioting in far western Xinjiang region in July in which almost 200 people died. The official Xinhua news agency reported that a court in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s regional capital, also sentenced three defendants to suspended death sentences, which could be commuted to life sentences in two years.Reuters/CCTV/China

China on Thursday sentenced six more people to death over bloody ethnic unrest in its far-western Xinjiang region in July, bringing the total to 12 as it delivered tough retribution over the violence.

Three of the six were given the death penalty with a two-year reprieve, a sentence usually commuted to life in prison, over the worst ethnic violence China had seen in decades.

A court in the regional capital Urumqi sentenced three others to life in jail and five people to lesser prison terms for their role in the unrest that rocked the city, according to a Xinjiang government statement faxed to AFP.

The violence erupted on 5 July, pitting mainly Muslim minority Uyghurs against members of China’s dominant Han group, leaving 197 dead and more than 1,600 injured, according to an official toll.

Han vigilantes then went on a rampage against Uyghurs two days later, but the exact number of casualties from that day has never been divulged.

A total of 21 defendants have been tried and convicted since Monday of murder and other crimes such as intentional damage to property, arson, and robbery. Security had been ratcheted up in Urumqi ahead of the trials.

Six Uyghurs were given the death penalty on Monday and another sent to prison for life, in a move that Uyghur exiles said would further stoke ethnic tensions in the vast region bordering Central Asia.

On Thursday, one man with a Han Chinese name — Han Junbo — was among those sentenced to death for beating an Uyghur man to death, the statement said. Another apparently Han man, Liu Bo, was given a 10-year jail term.

Six of the other defendants had names that appeared to be Uyghur, and the rest were not immediately identified, according to the government statement.

One of those sentenced to death, apparently an Uyghur, was found guilty of beating two people to death with another defendant, as well as stealing people’s possessions, including mobile phones and bracelets.

Uyghur exiles strongly condemned the latest sentences, saying Uyghur defendants were not given the right to choose their own lawyers, and were not allowed to meet with their families.

“China’s sentences are intensifying the deterioration of the situation, and there are no Uyghurs that can accept this type of abuse of justice,” the World Uyghur Congress said in a statement emailed to AFP.

Rebiya Kadeer, the exiled leader of the congress who lives in the United States, said Tuesday during a visit to New Zealand that the death sentences would serve only to “further enrage” her people.

Aside from the 21 tried this week, police have also detained around 700 people suspected of crimes related to the unrest, earlier reports have said.

Residents in Urumqi contacted by AFP said Thursday the city was calm amid a heavy security presence.

“We don’t worry too much but still we cannot relax our vigilance. The armed police are still on duty in bustling streets,” a woman at a drug store, who refused to be named, said over the phone.

China had vowed to come down hard on those found guilty, with President Hu Jintao and other top leaders saying the “organisers, key members, and the serious violent criminals must be severely punished,” Xinhua news agency said.

The country’s roughly eight million Turkic-speaking Uyghurs have long complained of religious, political and cultural oppression by Chinese authorities, and tensions have simmered in the Xinjiang region for years.

China says it faces a serious terrorist threat from Muslim separatists in Xinjiang, but rights groups have accused Beijing of exaggerating the threat in order to justify very tight controls in the region.

Authorities have blamed the Xinjiang unrest on “ethnic separatists”, without providing any evidence.

But Uyghurs say the violence was triggered when police cracked down on peaceful protests over a brawl in late June at a factory in southern China that state media said left two Uyghurs dead.

One ethnic Han man was sentenced to death and a second handed a life prison term over that brawl in verdicts announced on Saturday in southern China.

Copyright © 2009 AFP

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