Rebiya Kadeer

A court in China's restive Xinjiang sentenced three more people to death Friday for their roles in July ethnic violence, state media said, raising the total condemned to die or executed to 17. The court in the regional capital Urumqi sentenced another person to life in prison, while three defendants were given varying jail terms for the violence that left nearly 200 dead, the Xinhua news agency said, citing the verdict. On Thursday, an Urumqi court handed out death sentences to five others. Last month, nine people were executed for their roles in the violence that also left over 1,600 injured in the worst ... Read Full Story

A court in China's restive Xinjiang region sentenced five people to death on Thursday for murder and other crimes committed during deadly unrest in July, the state-run Xinhua news agency said. Two others were sentenced to life imprisonment by the court in the regional capital of Urumqi and six others were given varying jail terms, it said. China last month executed nine people who were convicted for their roles in the violence that left nearly 200 people dead and 1,600 injured, according to the government, in China's worst unrest in decades. The executions drew criticism from Western governments and rights groups who questioned the ... Read Full Story

China sentenced 19 people in restive Xinjiang to jail terms of three years to life for state security crimes, some in connection with deadly ethnic unrest in July, a US-based activist group said. The Uyghur American Association, in a statement emailed to AFP late Thursday, condemned the convictions of the men in the region's Yili prefecture, urging skepticism about the charges "in the absence of an open... trial". According to a report on the official China News Service on October 23, the defendants -- whose names indicated they were from the mainly Muslim Uighur minority -- were charged with "harming state security". The ringleader ... Read Full Story

Exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer, alleging that China has "destroyed" her Muslim people, is urging Japan's new government not to ignore their plight as it presses to bolster ties with Beijing. Kadeer was speaking during a visit to Japan, where Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's centre-left government took power five weeks ago vowing to improve regional ties and to promote an EU-style Asian community. US-based Kadeer, whom China labels a separatist, arrived Tuesday for a 10-day visit, her second trip to Japan this year, triggering an immediate protest from China against Japan for allowing her entry. Speaking with AFP late Tuesday, Kadeer criticised China for ... Read Full Story

A Taiwanese tourism delegation said Wednesday China had told it to cancel a promotional trip, amid continued anger over the screening on the island of a biopic of exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer. About 60 tourism operators from three southern Taiwan cities, including Kaohsiung where the film has been showing, called off a planned visit this week to the eastern Chinese cities of Hangzhou and Ningbo, they said. "We have to postpone the trip because the other side informed us it's inconvenient for them. We have to wait until the political atmosphere improves," said Tseng Fu-hsing, head of the Kaohsiung Tourism Association. Kaohsiung hotels ... Read Full Story