140 killed in China riots
Updated on 06 July 2009
At least 140 people dead and more than 800 injured in the worst violence in China since Tiananmen Square 20 years ago.
The trouble started during a protest by China's Muslim minority in the west of the country. The government said Uighur demonstrators had gone on the rampage. But Uighur exiles blamed heavy-handed Chinese security forces.
Hundreds of rioters have been arrested, the official Xinhua news agency reported, after rock-throwing Uighurs took to the streets of the regional capital on Sunday, some burning and smashing vehicles and confronting ranks of anti-riot police.
Urumqi residents were unable to access the Internet on Monday, several said.
The unrest underscores the volatile ethnic tensions that have accompanied China's growing economic and political stake in its western frontiers.
A senior official swiftly delivered the government claim that the unrest was the work of extremist forces abroad, signalling a security crackdown in the strategic region near Pakistan and central Asia.
Li Zhi, the Communist Party boss of Urumqi told a news conference that the death toll from the rioting had risen to 140, the semi-official China News Agency said. Xinhua said 816 people were injured and hospitalised.
"Police have tightened security in downtown Urumqi streets and at key institutions such as power and natural gas companies and TV stations to prevent large-scale riots," Xinhua quoted Xinjiang police chief Liu Yaohua as saying.
Police rounded up "several hundred" who participated in the violence, including more than 10 key players who fanned unrest, Xinhua said, and are searching for 90 others.
The riot in Urumqi, a city of 2.3 million residents 3,270 km (2,050 miles) west of Beijing, followed a protest against government handling of a June clash between Han Chinese and Uighur factory workers in southern China, where two Uighurs died in Shaoguan.
Jenny Wivell's report contains images some viewers may find disturbing.
