Uygurs 'suffering gross abuses of rights'

Beijing is carrying out "gross violations" of human rights in Xinjiang, Amnesty International said yesterday.

In a report detailing an "appalling" rights record in the region, the organisation listed extra-judicial killings, torture, executions and arbitrary detentions.

It said the abuses were largely targeted at the Muslim Uygur ethnic majority.

"The abuses documented by Amnesty bear testimony to intense repression in [Xinjiang]," the group said.

"The international community cannot stand by and remain silent in the face of these violations," it said in the statement, coinciding with a meeting of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva.

It said Xinjiang was the only region of China where political prisoners were known to have been executed in recent years.

Amnesty had recorded 210 death sentences and 190 executions in Xinjiang, mostly of Uygurs convicted of subversive or terrorist acts after unfair and often summary trials.

The report also cited the cases of around 200 political prisoners arrested during the 1990s and believed to be still detained or in prison, with arbitrary arrests continuing.

The group described tortures including the insertion of metal spikes or other irritants into the penis.

It said political trials were a formality. Prisoners were often denied access to lawyers and sentenced at degrading mass rallies.

However, Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi said yesterday media reports criticising China's human rights record were "groundless".

"I have not seen Amnesty's report but I can say that the Communist Party's ethnic policy in Xinjiang is well-implemented. There may be some problems because China is a big country but we are striving towards democracy and the rule of law."

Amnesty said the violence had increased in recent years in proportion to the degree of repression and the erosion of the Uygurs' economic, social and cultural rights.

The report also pointed to a pattern of discrimination against Uygurs in top jobs, schooling and access to education and health care.

It urged Beijing to set up a commission to investigate human rights violations and to establish a forum for individuals and groups to express their grievances.