Human Rights Watch has warned that dozens of ethnic Uighurs arrested during the riots in Urumqi (East Turkistan) last July are still missing. According to HRW, "the Chinese authorities have either denied the fact of detention or refused to provide any information about at least 43 detainees' whereabouts or fate despite requests from relatives".

HRW says the documented cases could be only the top of the iceberg, as the organisation's "ability to collect information was limited". Besides, few witnesses or family members were willing to come forward with their stories out of fear of retaliation. The police detained mainly young men over their 20's, but some of them were only 12 and 14 years old. According to witnesses, the excuse for detentions was the participation of young Uighur men in the protests. The security forces took away particularly those who had wounds or bruises on their bodies, or those who could not prove that they had remained at home during the protests.

In the cases reported by HRW, the attempts made by the families of detainees to inquire about the relatives have proved unsuccessful, since the authorities said they had no knowledge of the arrests. HRW officials have declared that enforced disappearances are inappropriate of countries aspiring to global leadership. They have called for Beijing to inform immediately on the detainees -the organization estimates that more than 1,000 detentions were carried out in the aftermath of the riots- and to allow an independent international investigation into the circumstances of the Xinjiang protests.

Human Rights Watch has said the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights should take the lead on an international investigation into the events in Xinjiang, and has called on China's international partners, including the United States and the European Union, to even consider an eventual commercial embargo until events are cleared up.

Death sentences
As regards identified detainees, Beijing ruled last week 12 Uighur people have been sentenced to death. According to the Chinese official sources, Muslims from East Turkistan (known officially as the Xinjiang province) are to blame for the riots occurred from July 5 to 7 2009, which resulted in about 200 people dead, most of them ethnic Han.

Further information:

• HRW: China: Detainees ‘Disappeared' After Xinjiang Protests