China is not on Friday happy with the European Union's condemnation over execution of nine Uighurs.

The European Union condemned Thursday China's executions and expressed concern about the conditions in which they were tried.

"The EU respects China's right to bring those responsible for violent action to justice but reaffirms its longstanding opposition to the use of the death penalty under all circumstances,"

EU president Sweden said in a statement, it said that in death penalty cases "internationally recognised minimum standards must be respected. These include all possible safeguards to ensure a fair trial and adequate representation."

"The EU reiterates its concerns about the conditions under which the trials were conducted, especially with regard to whether due process and other safeguards for a fair trial were respected."

The 27 nation bloc also urged China to urgently review the cases of others sentenced to death over the unrest.

But Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said the European Union was interfering in China's internal affairs.

"We are extremely dissatisfied," Qin said in a statement carried on the ministry's website (www.mfa.gov.cn).

China was a country ruled by laws, carried out the trials properly, and no outsider had a right to get involved, he said.

China "demands the European side stop making the same mistakes again and again, earnestly respect the principles of equality and mutual respect, and do more to benefit the healthy and stable development of China-EU relations," Qin said.

The statement come just after Chinese state agents regularly abduct citizens and detain them for days or months in secret, illegal "black jails", subjecting them to physical and psychological abuses, Human Rights Watch said Thursday.

The US-based rights group in a new report called on China to shut down the detention facilities, many of which it said were housed in state-owned hotels, nursing homes and psychiatric care units, and bring their managers to justice.

"The existence of black jails in the heart of Beijing makes a mockery of the Chinese government's rhetoric on improving human rights and respecting the rule of law," said Sophie Richardson, the group's Asia advocacy director.

China convicted 21 defendants in October -- nine were sentenced to death, three were given the death penalty with a two-year reprieve, a sentence usually commuted to life in jail, and the rest were given various prison terms.

The official China News Service reported that the nine were executed after a final review of the verdicts by the Supreme People's Court as required by law, but gave no specific date or other details. Earlier reports had identified those condemned as eight Uighurs and one Han.

China officially put the death toll at 197 in police crackdown, but accepted to kill only 12 Uighurs.

Chinese lynch sparked Uighur protests in Urumqi. Exiled Uighur leaders said the protests were peaceful until security forces over-reacted with deadly force.

Urumqi is in the Uighur Autonomous Region that has a population of over 21 million.

The communist China changed name of East Turkistan and named it Xinjiang in 1955.

Many Uighurs resent Han Chinese rule, complaining they're marginalised economically and politically in their own land, while having to tolerate a rising influx of Han Chinese migrants.

Meanwhile, human rights groups accuse Beijing of using claims of "terrorism" as an excuse to crack down on peaceful pro-independence sentiment and expressions of Uighur identity.

East Turkistan, that has 8 million Uighurs, borders Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, has abundant oil reserves and is China's largest natural gas-producing region.


Agencies