Twenty dead in clashes in Xinjiang region

Twenty protesters from China's minority Uighur community are reported to have been killed in a clash with police in the ethnically tense northwestern region of Xinjiang. 

Reuters

According to official reports, four people including a police officer were killed when a crowd set upon a police station in the remote city of Hotan.

But Uighur activists said it was an outburst of anger by ordinary members of the mainly Muslim ethnic minority, and accused authorities of attempting to block information on the deadly incident.

Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the Germany-based World Uyghur Congress, said the latest incident erupted after a group of Uighurs tried to take away a number of police officers as leverage in their demands for the release of family members detained previously.

Citing sources in Xinjiang, he said security forces beat 14 people to death and shot dead six others during the unrest.

"The Chinese authorities should immediately cease their systematic oppression to prevent a further escalation of the situation," he said.

He added at least 70 people have been detained after Monday's incident and authorities were continuing to hunt down other suspects.

Xinjiang has been plagued by violent unrest in recent years, culminating in savage Uighur attacks on members of China's dominant Han group in the regional capital Urumqi in July 2009.

Xinjiang -- a vast, arid but resource-rich region bordering Central Asia, is home to more than eight million Turkic-speaking Uighurs.