A Chinese court has sentenced 12 people to death in connection with attacks earlier this year which left dozens dead.
According to the government, attackers had stormed a police station and government offices in July, killing 37 civilians. 59 of the attackers were shot dead by security forces.
Fifteen individuals were given suspended death sentences, nine were imprisoned for life and another 20 received jail sentences ranging between four and 20 years.
The government’s Tianshan Newsv reported that they were convicted of "organising, leading or participating in organised terror crimes, homicide, illegal construction of explosive devices, arson, kidnapping and harming public safety".
Activists at the time disputed the government’s version of events, saying that Uighurs were protesting "against Chinese security forces' heavy-handed Ramadan crackdown... and extrajudicial use of lethal force in recent weeks in the county".
The Uighur people, the majority in the Xinjiang region of China, have protested against rule, with recent years seeing an escalation in violence between Uighurs and Han Chinese migrants, resulting in a brutal crackdown by security forces.
Recent attacks on Chinese targets have been blamed on Uighur separatists by the government.
The Chinese government recently sentenced prominent Uighur academic Ilham Tohti to life in prison after finding him guilty of separatism.
Tohti, who is not an independence activist but an outspoken critic of the crackdown on Uighurs, denies the charges.