Chinese riot police patrol a street following riots in Urumqi, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, China, yesterday. PHOTO: AFP

Violent street battles killed at least 140 people and injured 828 others in the deadliest ethnic unrest to hit China’s western Xinjiang region in decades and officials said yesterday that the death toll was expected to rise.

Police sealed off streets in parts of the provincial capital, Urumqi, after discord between ethnic Muslim Uighurs and China’s Han majority erupted into riots. Witnesses reported a new protest yesterday in a second city, Kashgar.

On Friday, Green Island Human Rights Memorial Park will debut a series of events to mark the 60th anniversary of the declaration of martial law, during which an updated name-list of White Terror victims will be unveiled.

The memorial park’s administration said a total of 8,296 names would be disclosed, which is seven times the number disclosed in 1999 by the Bo Yang Human Rights Educational Foundation. The park’s administration entrusted Taiwan Art-in Design with collecting and verifying the information concerning White Terror victims.

Former vice secretary of the National Security Council (NSC) Parris Chang recently wrote in the Formosa Post that NSC Secretary-General Su Chi visited China in 2005 when he was serving as a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator and that he was looked after by the Chinese government.

During his stay, he gave a speech at a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) school in which he spoke out against the US government’s sale of military items to Taiwan, a move that caused the US to suspect Su’s allegiance, Chang said.