POSTERS went up on lampposts and walls all around drab neighbourhoods in the northwestern area of China last week, announcing a series of executions.

They proclaimed the deaths of nine men convicted of murdering people during the racial violence that convulsed the remote city of Urumqi in July. No details were released of the condemned men’s last moments and few dared to mourn them.

The executions marked the culmination of the Chinese authorities’ response to a revolt by native Uighur Muslims in the city on July 5.

The revolt triggered violent clashes with Han Chinese settlers before being put down by security forces that night. Chinese civilians later turned on the Uighurs.

Since the clashes ended on July 7, the Chinese and the Uighurs have traded acrimonious claims about what happened and how many died.

The government said that of the 197 people killed, only 46 were Uighurs. A local official put the number of rioters shot dead by the security forces at just 12.

Exiles, however, alleged that hundreds of Uighur men had died and thousands had disappeared after a police and army sweep through the rough district of Sai Ma Chang.

Last week The Sunday Times conducted dozens of interviews in an investigation to discover what had happened. We found a city with soldiers on every street, full of rumours and fear, cut off from communications with the outside world. But some facts became clear.

The trouble began thousands of miles away in June when workers at a factory in southern China ran amok on hearing dubious claims that a girl had been raped by migrant workers. Two Uighurs were beaten to death.

When news of this reached the Uighur region of Xinjiang by text message and mobile phone video, there was ferment. Students asked permission to hold a protest in People’s Square at the heart of Urumqi, the region’s capital.

They were turned down by Wang Lequan, the Communist party secretary, a hardliner who is the most powerful man in Xinjiang and also the architect of Chinese policy in neighbouring Tibet, but the authorities failed to defuse the tension.

In the late afternoon of Sunday, July 5, gangs of Uighur youths began attacking the police around People’s Square. They hurled rocks, smashed vehicles and set upon ordinary passers-by.

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