Three killed in riot in China's Xinjiang region

By Chris Buckley

BEIJING (Reuters) - Three people died in rioting in China's restive far west Xinjiang region on Sunday, state media reported, in a confrontation that underscored the tense divide there between Han Chinese and the Uighur ethnic minority.

The official Xinhua news agency said rioters "illegally gathered in several downtown places and engaged in beating, smashing, looting and burning" in the regional capital Urumqi.

The dead were "three ordinary people of the Han ethnic group," Xinhua said. It did not say how they died.

Nor did the official reports specify the ethnicity of those involved in the unrest or the reasons behind it, and calls to the Xinjiang government spokesperson's office and Urumqi police were not answered.

But other sources told Reuters the clash involved members of the Uighur ethnic minority, many of whom resent the Chinese presence in the region, and the cultural and religious controls imposed by China's ruling Communist Party.

Dilxat Raxit, an advocate of Uighur independence exiled in Sweden, said the unrest was sparked by anger over a confrontation between Han Chinese and Uighur factory workers in far southern China in late June, when two Uighurs died.

"It began as a peaceful assembly. There were thousands of people shouting to stop ethnic discrimination, demanding an explanation. This anger has been growing for a long time," he said of the gathering in Urumqi.

Many Uighurs complain they are marginalised economically and politically in their own land, which has rich mineral and natural gas reserves.