BEIJING, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- China says the deportation of the 20 Uighur asylum seekers from Cambodia is an internal matter which should not concern the outside world.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said the 20 are Chinese citizens and that they were sent back as per immigration law, Xinhua news agency reported.
Last week, China said the Uighurs, who had fled to Cambodia a month ago, were suspected of criminal activities stemming from the July ethnic riots in China's Uighur region and objected to their applying to the United Nations office in Cambodia for refugee status. Cambodia was asked to repatriate them.
The Uighurs are members of China's Turkic-speaking minority. The Chinese media reported authorities have arrested about 380 people since early November as suspects in the July riots in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang-Uighur region, in which about 200 people died.
"Any country facing such circumstances is entitled to make its own decision in accordance with its domestic laws," Jiang said. "How to handle with these people is the internal affair of China, and the outside world shall not make irresponsible remarks."
At least 14 people have been sentenced to death for murder and other crimes allegedly committed during the July riots, which erupted after months of simmering ethnic tensions as the Muslim Uighurs resent being ruled by Han Chinese.
The deportation "will affect Cambodia's relationship with the U.S. and its international standing," a State Department spokesman said in a statement, CNN reported.
Amnesty International issued an open letter urging China to treat the 20 fairly.
"The 20 should either be charged with recognizably criminal offences or released. Their trials should meet international fair trial standards, and under no circumstances should the death penalty be imposed," AI wrote to the minister of foreign affairs. "Our concerns in this regard are heightened by the fact that the Chinese authorities have already executed nine people and sentenced eight others to death in relation to the July 2009 unrest in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region."
