Beijing: China alleged on Tuesday that 22
Muslim Uighurs who fled to Cambodia after deadly ethnic
rioting this summer are criminals and said they should not be
granted asylum.
The Uighurs were smuggled out of China with the help
of a secret network of missionaries and Chinese Christians,
according to missionaries who helped them. They arrived in
Cambodia in recent weeks and have applied for asylum at the UN
refugee agency office in Phnom Penh.
"These people are involved in crimes," Foreign
Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a press conference, without
giving any evidence.
The UN refugee programme "should not be a haven for
criminals," Jiang said. The ethnic rioting in July between
Uighurs and the majority Han Chinese was China's worst
communal violence in decades. The Chinese government says the
violence left nearly 200 people, mostly Han, dead.
Overseas Uighur groups say Uighurs have been rounded
up in mass detentions since the violence. China has handed
down at least 17 death sentences over the rioting.
Ilshat Hassan, the US-based director of interior
affairs for the World Uyghur Congress, has said the 22 Uighurs
are the first large group to leave China after the riots, and
they fear they will be returned by Cambodia, which has close
ties with China.
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, December 15, 2009, 21:06