Police in western China have detained another 319 people suspected of being involved in deadly ethnic unrest between Muslim minority Uighurs and the dominant Han Chinese community last month, a state news agency said.

Police in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, said the detentions were made in the city and elsewhere in the far western region, based on information given by the public or obtained in investigations, Xinhua news agency reported late on Sunday. It did not say how many of those detained were Uighur or Han Chinese.

The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in Australia said in a statement that it was “surprised and regretful” that Fortissimo, the Hong Kong-based distribution company of the movie Miao Miao by Taiwanese director Cheng Hsiao-tse and with mostly Taiwanese actors had pulled the movie from the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF).

President Ma Ying-jeou should rein in Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members who are spreading racist and gender-biased propaganda in a bid to snatch votes for the year-end local elections and support for a controversial trade pact with China, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday.

Acting DPP Spokesman Chao Tian-ling said at a press conference that the KMT’s Chiayi County branch has been running a “questionable, negative advertisement” insinuating that the DPP nominee in the county commissioner’s race, Chang Hwa-kuan, was involved in adulterous relations with the current commissioner, Chen Ming-wen.