WASHINGTON (AFP) — Exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer called for international probes into the deadly violence that rocked the restive region of Xinjiang which authorities in China have blamed on rioting Muslim Uighurs.
"We hope that the United Nations, the United States and the European Union will send teams to investigate what really took place in Xinjiang," Kadeer told a news conference.
"We hope the White House will issue a stronger statement urging the Chinese government to show restraint, and also to tell the truth of the nature of the events and what happened, and to tell the Chinese government to redress Uighur grievances," Kadeer said.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, in a brief statement issued from Moscow during US President Barack Obama's official visit there, said the United States was "deeply concerned" about the reports of deaths in Xinjiang's capital Urumqi and called for "all in Xinjiang to exercise restraint."
China has said that at least 156 people were killed Sunday in riots in Urumqi, the regional capital of Xinjiang province, and showed dramatic footage of the unrest which the authorities have blamed on the Turkic-speaking Uighurs, a people with closer cultural ties to regional neighbors than the Han Chinese.
But Kadeer said the Uighurs had turned out to protest peacefully after Uighur workers at a toy factory in eastern China were attacked by "thousands of Chinese citizens."
No one was arrested following the attacks on the factory workers, said Kadeer, and "as a result, people in Urumqi took to the streets peacefully to demand justice for those who were killed," she said.
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