China city tense after police shooting kills 2

URUMQI, China (AP) — Paramilitary police blocked access Tuesday to a Uighur neighborhood in Urumqi where two Uighurs were shot to death a day earlier, laying spikes across the road and barring nonresidents from entering.

Security was tightened across the tense capital of China's western Xinjiang region, where a spasm of ethnic violence earlier this month left at least 184 dead and another 1,680 injured in the worst unrest China has seen in decades.

On Monday, after several days of relative calm, the government said police shot and killed two of three Uighurs who had attacked a fourth man with long knives and batons.

It was the first time the government has acknowledged its security forces opened fire since the violence hit Urumqi on July 5.

On Tuesday, paramilitary police with shields and rifles lay a band of spikes across a road to block access to an alley of dingy apartment blocks — near where the shootings occurred — where many poorer minority Uighurs live. They continued to block roads leading into the main Uighur district near the Grand Bazaar market.

A police van parked at the mouth of the alley blared messages in the Uighur language, attacking Rebiya Kadeer, the prominent exiled Uighur activist whom the Chinese government blames for inciting the unrest. It has not provided evidence.

Kadeer, who lives in Washington, D.C., has denied the charges and blames government policies for causing the violence.

In the latest violence, the city government said three Uighur men, who were attacking a fourth Uighur with long knives and batons, turned on police who tried to break up the fight. The police shot and killed two of the men when they ignored warnings, the government said. The third man was wounded and taken to a nearby hospital, where his condition was unknown.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang on Tuesday rejected allegations that the unrest would hurt Beijing's ties with Muslim countries, saying the violence was not based on religion.

"If they have a clear idea about true nature of the incident, they would understand China's policies concerning religion and religious issues and understand the measures we have taken," he said at a regular news conference.