More Uighur separatists executed

Reports from China's north-western region of Xinjiang have confirmed last month's execution of sixteen people.

A spokesman for an Uighur separatist exile movement in Kazakhstan said thirteen of the executed were Uighurs.

An official Chinese newspaper in Xinjiang reported that the executions took place on December the twenty-ninth after a mass trial -- seven were accused of violent acts in the regional capital, Urumqi, during a separatist uprising last February with the aim of destroying Chinese unity.

The paper said China had drafted more than one-hundred-thousand extra troops into Xinjiang from other parts of the country and had carried out arrests in local universities and schools.

Eighteen people were killed in a series of bombings and other anti-Chinese attacks during last year's riot; official reports had already spoken of twenty people being executed for their involvement.

Ethnic Uighurs have been campaigning for a separate state in Xinjiang.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service