A Uighur man was stabbed to death in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, a sign of lingering tensions after a factory brawl last summer sparked bloody ethnic riots in Xinjiang, a newspaper said on Saturday, Reuters reported.
Energy-rich Xinjiang, homeland to the Muslim Uighur people and strategically located in central Asia, has been struck in recent years by bombings, attacks and riots blamed by Beijing on Uighur separatists demanding an independent "East Turkistan".
The ethnic Uighur man was attacked by a Han Chinese man in a restaurant in Shenzhen, a city close to Shaoguan in Guangdong province where a massive brawl broke out at a factory between a group of Han Chinese and Uighur workers from Xinjiang last June, the South China Morning Post reported.
The Shaoguan incident triggered serious ethnic rioting in Xinjiang's capital Urumqi when Uighurs attacked Han Chinese, killing at least 197 people.
"I can't say the suspect was targeting Uighurs. But this is a traumatizing experience for me. We will return to Xinjiang once police finish questioning," the Uighur owner of the Xinjiang barbeque restaurant was quoted as saying by the paper.
Seven Han Chinese men were arrested and reportedly fired from their jobs afterwards.
"The case is very sensitive, especially after the Xinjiang riots last July," a manager of the Hongtaide Property Management Company, where the men had worked, was quoted as saying.
Police in Guangzhou recently detained three people for spreading rumors that a group of Uighurs had been beaten up.