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WELLINGTON : Exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer on Tuesday said a Chinese court's decision to sentence six Uighurs to death over July unrest would serve only to "further enrage" her people.
Kadeer, the US-based leader of the World Uighur Congress, added that she believed the Uighurs were not tried according to Chinese or international law.
"This is not going to create peace and stability in the region, this will further enrage the Uighur people," she said while on a visit to New Zealand, a day after the sentences in the Xinjiang regional capital Urumqi.
"For the Uighur people around the world this is a very sad day, a day of mourning," Kadeer told Auckland student radio station 95bFM through an interpreter.
The six were convicted of murder and other crimes on Monday by a court in Urumqi in the first trials over July unrest in which nearly 200 people were killed.
China Central Television (CCTV) said one other defendant was sentenced to life in prison over the violence, in which members of the Uighur minority went on a rampage in attacks directed at members of the dominant Han ethnic group.
Xinhua news agency said the seven, all men, were convicted in three separate cases. It identified them by names that appeared to be Uighur.
Kadeer said in the radio interview during a four day visit to New Zealand that accused Uighurs did not receive proper legal defence or due process.
"Not only the six Uighurs, we believe a lot of Uighurs have been killed through torture in the prisons after July 5. This is an injustice," Kadeer said.
She added she hoped the international community would not ignore the death sentences.
July's unrest in western Xinjiang region was the worst ethnic violence to hit China in decades, leaving 197 people dead, most of them Han, and more than 1,600 injured, according to the government.
China's eight million Uighurs have long complained of religious, political and cultural oppression by Chinese authorities.
Kadeer arrived in New Zealand on Monday after being invited by the Green Party, a minor political party with nine seats in parliament.
She was to speak at public meetings in Auckland and Wellington on Tuesday and Wednesday and is due to meet Green legislators before leaving on Thursday.
At a public meeting at the University of Auckland on Tuesday, Kadeer was greeted by a small number of vocal pro-Beijing protesters brandishing a banner reading "AU does not welcome terrorist".
The Chinese government describes Kadeer's World Uighur Congress as a separatist terrorist movement and accuses the group of directing July's unrest. - AFP/so/ms
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