10,000 Uighurs missing in China: activist
Last Updated: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 | 9:23 AM ET
CBC News
Exiled Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer speaks during a news conference in Tokyo on Wednesday. (Yuriko Nakao/Reuters) Thousands of Uighurs who were involved in deadly ethnic riots in China's Xinjiang region earlier in July went missing in one night, an exiled Uighur activist said Wednesday in Tokyo.
"Nearly 10,000 people disappeared overnight from Urumqi. Where did they go? Were they all killed or sent somewhere?" Rebiya Kadeer told a news conference at the Japan National Press Club.
"If they are dead, where are their bodies? If they are detained, where are they? The Chinese government should fully disclose what it did to them."
She called for an international investigation into the matter.
Kadeer did not elaborate on how she arrived at the 10,000 figure, but many Uighurs reported their families were rounded up after the riots on July 5.
Tensions between minority Muslim Uighurs and majority Han chinese exploded in the Xinjiang regional capital of Urumqi. It was the country's worst unrest in decades, leaving 197 people dead and more than 1,700 wounded. Kadeer disputes these official figures.
Chinese police arrested another 253 people Wednesday suspected of taking part in the riots in addition to 1,400 people detained earlier, though none has been charged.
China has accused Kadeer, who lives in exile in Washington, of triggering the riots and of spreading misinformation.
With files from The Associated Press
