China to try 200 for Xinjiang unrests

China is to put more than 200 people on trial for alleged involvement in deadly unrests, which erupted in the country's Xinjiang region last month.

The trials are expected to start this week in Urumqi -- the regional capital shaken by violence in early July, the China Daily reported on Monday.

Nearly 200 people were killed and 1,600 others wounded in the violence sparked over a row between ethnic Uighurs and Han Chinese.

Chinese authorities have ever since carried out a severe crackdown on mainly the Muslim-majority city of Kashgar in southern Xinjiang and Urumqi, detaining over 1,500 people.

There is no exact account on how many Uighurs and how many Han Chinese would go to trial this week, but according to China Daily more than 170 Uighurs and 20 Han lawyers had been assigned to the suspects.

Their charges include vandalizing public property and transport, organizing crowds to cause bodily harm to others, robbery, murder and arson.

So far more than 3,300 items of physical evidence, including bricks and clubs stained with blood, 91 video clips and 2,169 photographs have been collected by the authorities and are to be represented at court, the newspaper added.

Although security in Urumqi is already high, armed police have started around-the-clock patrols of the area near the Intermediate People's Court, where the trials are to be held.

As there is an intense public interest in the matter, the court proceedings will be made public.

Beijing -- which claims most of the people killed in the ordeal were Han Chinese -- accuses the Washington-based separatist World Uighur Congress, led by exiled Rebiya Kadeer, of instigating the unrest.

Kadeer, who says many Uighurs were also killed in the riots, denies the accusations.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=104360§ionid=351020404.