Estonia ignores Beijing's protest over Uighurs

The Estonian government has ignored a diplomatic protest from Beijing and allowed some seventy ethnic Uighurs to hold a conference in the capital, Tallinn.

An Estonian foreign ministry spokesman press secretary Vahur Soosar told the BBC that representatives from the Chinese embassy had lodged a complaint about the meeting, which is being organised by the Unrepresented Peoples' and Nations' Organisation.

But the Estonian spokesman said Estonia is a democratic country and could not stop the meeting.

An organiser of the conference, Erkin Alptekin, said the group had information that arbitrary arrests, torture and executions were increasingly common in China's northwestern province of Xinjiang where the majority of the population is ethnic Uighur or Turkic-speaking Muslims.

The Chinese government sees the activities of ethnic Uighurs wanting independence for the region as a matter of internal security.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service