China has sentenced a Han Chinese to death for the revenge murder of a Muslim Uighur in the aftermath of China's deadliest ethnic violence in decades.

Nearly 200 people died and 1,700 were injured in the unrest that erupted on July 5, as members of the Uighur ethnic Turkic minority rioted in protest at Beijing rule. The rash of death sentences this week highlights the determination of the authorities to deter fresh outbursts.

A court in the western city of Urumqi handed down sentences yesterday on 14 people convicted for their part in the violence, with penalties ranging from 10 years to death. With three more death sentences, the verdicts bring to nine the total number sentenced this week to capital punishment.

The decision to convict a Han Chinese so early in the trials signals that the authorities want to demonstrate that retribution against Uighurs will be tough. However, it is also intended to show the ethnic minority that justice will be served against members of the Han Chinese majority.

Han Junbo is now facing the death penalty for the killing on July 7, the day that thousands of Han Chinese carrying metal rods, staves and sticks marched through the streets of Urumqi, hunting down Uighurs in a revenge attack for riots two days earlier when many of the victims were Han.

Han Junbo and another man, Liu Bo, attacked two Uighurs with steel bars, chasing them onto the roof of a building. One of the Uighurs leapt off, sustaining injuries. The two Han Chinese then returned to their first victim as he lay on the ground and beat him to death. Mr Liu was jailed for 10 years.

The Beijing authorities now face an enormous challenge to try to restore a semblance of ethnic trust in the far western Xinjiang region. Uighurs, especially less well-educated farmers from southern Xinjiang, feel resentful at seeing jobs in more prosperous cities like Urumqi going to better-educated Han who have migrated from central China. They live in slums and tenements and lack the means or the education to compete with Han who arrive and set up small shops and businesses.

Many of those killed in the riot on July 5 appeared from their clothing to be working-class Han Chinese who compete directly with Uighurs for menial jobs in construction or in markets. Beijing knows that it needs to improve the standard of living for Uighurs left behind in China’s race to greater prosperity and has announced larger subsidies for the region and issued promises of better job opportunities.

Television showed footage of the two Han Chinese defendants, in orange prison vests, as they were sentenced in court – a move clearly intended to reassure Uighurs that attackers of all ethnic groups would face the law. However, many Han Chinese in the city remain fearful and angry. They have seen pictures in the newspapers and on television of men and women hacked or beaten to death in the riot, their bodies lying in the street surrounded by pools of blood.

Television has shown interviews with both Han Chinese and Uighurs, many with severe head injuries, speaking of coming under attack from angry Uighurs on the evening of July 5. Many more suspects are likely to go on trial as police rounded up hundreds of people after the riot.

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