More than 200 people are expected to go on trial this week for their involvement in sectarian riots last month that killed nearly 200 people in China's eastern region of Xinjiang, a state-run newspaper reported Monday. The trials will take place in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang and the site of China's worst ethnic violence in decades, in which another 1,700 people were injured, the China Daily reported. The rioting pitted indigenous Turkic-speaking Muslim Uighurs against members of China's dominant Han ethnic group who have migrated to the region in large numbers over recent decades. Tensions in the city remain high with security forces keeping a wary eye out for renewed violence. China Daily said security will be further boosted around the time of the trials to prevent revenge attacks or assaults by Uihgur radicals that Beijing blames for carrying out a low-level insurgency against Chinese rule in the region. Officials have offered little direct information about the investigation into the riots that broke out July 5 after police stopped an initially peaceful protest by Uighur youths. Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gers) then smashed windows, burned cars and attacked Han. Two days later, the Han took to the streets and staged retaliatory attacks. An official reached at the Urumqi Intermediate People's Court Monday confirmed the court would be handling cases related to the riots, but said he did not know when they would go to trial. The official, who works in the court's political section, gave only his surname, Ren, as is common among Chinese officials. Authorities have repeatedly accused exiled Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer of fomenting the violence, but have offered little proof to back up their claims. Most of the arrests of riot suspects were made in Urumqi and Kashgar, a city in southern Xinjiang with a heavy concentration of Uighur people, the newspaper quoted an unidentified Urumqi prosecutor as saying. The charges range from vandalizing public property to murder, the China Daily said. The China Daily said 718 people had been detained on suspicion of taking part in the rioting. Earlier reports said at least 1,600 were detained. It wasn't clear whether any had been released.
