On the heels of nine executions last month, five more have been sentenced to death by the Intermediate People's Court of Urumqi for crimes committed during the July riots. They were found guilty of killing a police officer and kicking bystanders to death. Two others were sentenced to life in prison; the names of all accused indicate that they are ethnically Uyghur. Rebiya Kadeer, leader of the exiled World Uyghur Congress (and all around Uyghur-rights activist) further iterated her earlier criticisms of the Xinjiang trials in an e-mail statement, claiming that the government has "brazenly ignored all standards of due process." more ›

Nine people were executed yesterday for their involvement in the Xinjiang riots earlier this summer. Among the nine, two were ethnically Han, and the other seven were of Uighur descent. The exiled World Uighur Congress denounced the executions as unfair and unjust, claiming that the government had denied the prisoners a final visit from their families. In addition, twenty more people were indicted in relation to eighteen deaths during the riots. more ›