Exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama voiced his support on Wednesday for Uighurs, saying "the people of East Turkestan have experienced great difficulties and increased oppression".

Although China is not clear over number of Uighur executions, a top official said it has so far convicted 198 people for involvement in deadly ethnic violence last July in what Uighurs call East Turkistan, with more sentencings to come.

"The investigations, prosecution and trials are still going on and the final figure of the people sentenced will be larger," Nur Berkri, the chairman of the region China named "Xinjiang".

The convictions were handed down in 97 separate cases, he said.

In an address marking 51 years since he fled Tibet after a failed uprising against Chinese rule, the Dalai Lama referred to China-named Xinjiang as "East Turkestan", as Uighurs call. The region is populated by Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim people.

"Let us also remember the people of East Turkestan who have experienced great difficulties and increased oppression," he told about 3,000 Tibetans in Dharamsala, the northern Indian hill town where he has lived for five decades.

"I would like to express my solidarity and stand firmly with them".

Nearly 200 people were killed and up to 1,600 injured when unrest exploded into street riots in Urumqi.

Berkri refused to say how many defendants were sentenced to death or how many had been executed, but according to state press reports 26 have so far received capital punishment and at least nine have already been put to death.

Several dozen death sentences have been handed down in those cases but Bekri did not say how many people have been executed.

Most of the names of those sentenced to death appeared to be Uighur.

Many Uighurs say Han migrants have flooded into the region and receive most of the benefits of government programs and Uighur mineral wealth. The government also enforces strict controls over Uighur culture and religion.

Tibet protests

In Dharamsala, thousands of exiled Tibetans, including maroon-robed monks, nuns and many Westerners, marked the day with a march carrying blue-yellow-red Tibetan flags and banners with anti-China messages.

In neighbouring Nepal, police detained about a dozen Tibetan protestors when they tried to storm a Chinese consulate office in the capital Kathmandu. The protestors, who shouted "Free Tibet", were dragged away by riot police to waiting vans.

In a separate incident, dozens of Tibetan refugees protested against China after prayer meetings inside a Buddhist monastery.

Reaching out to Tibetans working for the Chinese government, the Dalai Lama said: "I invite Tibetan officials serving in various Tibetan autonomous areas to visit Tibetan communities living in the free world, either officially or in a private capacity, to observe the situation for themselves."

China bans Tibetans who work for the government from visiting exile communities, but many ordinary Tibetans make the hazardous and illegal crossing to study Buddhism in Dharamsala.

The Dalai Lama also vowed he and members of his self-proclaimed government-in-exile would not take any political positions if and when the Tibet issue was resolved.

On Sunday, Tibet's new Chinese-appointed governor said only socialism could "save" the region and guarantee its development, and blamed the Dalai Lama for Tibet's problems.

The Dalai Lama said Beijing had put monks and nuns "in prison-like conditions", making "monasteries function more like museums ... to deliberately annihilate Buddhism".

But he offered to keep talking to the Chinese, despite what he sees as "little hope" of results.

China and the Dalai Lama's envoys have held several rounds of talks since 2002 but made little progress.


Agencies