China may seek return of fleeing Uighurs

BEIJING, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- China says the 22 Uighurs who have fled to Cambodia are suspected of criminal activities stemming from the July ethnic riots in the Uighur region.

In a written statement to The New York Times, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman objected to the Uighurs applying to the United Nations office in Cambodia for refugee status, and said the Beijing government is asking or may ask the Cambodian government to repatriate them.

The ministry said the fleeing Uighurs, members of China's Turkic-speaking minority who reached Cambodia a month ago with help of some Christian missionaries, were being investigated in China.

Chinese media have reported authorities have arrested about 380 people since early November as suspects in the July riots in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang-Uighur, in which about 200 people died. At least 14 people have been sentenced to death for murder and other crimes allegedly committed during the riots, which erupted after months of simmering ethnic tensions as the Muslim Uighurs resent being ruled by Han Chinese.

"China's stance is very clear: the international refugee protection system shouldn't become a shelter where criminals stay to escape legal punishment," the Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman said, the Times reported.

The Phnom Penh Post reported the Chinese Embassy sent a note to the Cambodian government about the Uighurs, the Times said. A Cambodian Foreign Ministry spokesman gave no other details.

Amnesty International has informed the Cambodian government it is prohibited under a 1951 convention from forcibly repatriating refugees to countries where they could face torture or other ill treatment.