Chinese Condemn Six Uighurs to Death

(Beijing, China) According to a report from the official Xinhua news agency, a Chinese court has sentenced six Muslim Uighurs to death for their part in the July 2009 rioting in Xinjiang Province.

It was not clear from the report by the official Xinhua news agency if any of the death sentences would be commuted, as sometimes happens in China, or appealed against. Another person was given life imprisonment, Xinhua said.

The reported names of those convicted left little doubt that they were Uighurs, a Muslim, Turkic-speaking people native to Xinjiang. But the report did not specify their ethnicity.

They were the first people to be convicted for involvement in the riots, and the convictions may revive memories of the discontent and bloodshed that have left Xinjiang increasingly divided.

The verdicts prompted outrage from Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the exiled World Uyghur Congress, who claimed the trials were a sham.

"The whole process lacked transparency and was unfair," he said by telephone. "They were not given any kind of legal aid. Uighurs have no protection under the law."

The basic conflict results from animosity between the Uighurs, a Muslim-Turkish population living in the western province of Xinjiang, and the majority Han Chinese. The two groups don't like each other. The Han Chinese see the Uighurs as threatening their jobs in addition to blaming them for rapes, robberies and arsons. The Uighurs see the Han Chinese as oppressive interlopers in their traditional homeland which they demand become separated from China as independent East Turkistan.

The deadly riots were sparked by fatal attacks on two Uighurs at the Early Light Toy factory in Guangdong last June.

Expect the Uighur-Han Chinese conflict to continue. Also expect the reporting of the situation to be sketchy and slanted since the ChiComs keep a tight grip on journalists.