The justices may not take up the Uighur appeal for weeks or months.
Beijing authorities often blame violent incidents in Xinjiang on Uighur extremists seeking autonomy for the region.
In this case, the spread of rumors quickly polarized both Uighur and Han communities.
China demanded that Australia not show a film about a Uighur leader in exile in America.
Many Han Chinese say they no longer dare go into Uighur areas or eat in Uighur restaurants.
Elsewhere armed security men blocked roads and stopped pedestrians and cars attempting to enter predominantly Uighur neighbourhoods.
ECONOMIST: Unrest in China: Unrest on the western front | The
Albania had accepted five Uighur prisoners in 2006 but has refused to allow any more in the country.
China consists of some 50 minorities and also majority races: the Han, Manchus, Mongols, Uighur, Zhuang and Tibetans.
Uighur activists, meanwhile, accuse Beijing of over-exaggerating the threat to justify heavy-handed rule.
There have also been unconfirmed reports of numerous arrests of Uighur activists in the cities of Kashgar and Gulja.
Whenever I see a Uighur, Tibetan or migrant worker hailing a taxi, I just pretend I didn't see them.
Han entrepreneurs have flocked to the region, though in many cases the growing Chinese presence has further exacerbated Uighur resistance.
WSJ: Chinese Authorities Raise Death Toll in Xinjiang Violence
The official response is to stamp brutally on Uighur restiveness and to make Xinjiang more like the rest of China.
For example, the court order to release 17 Uighurs -- 17 Uighur detainees took place last fall, when George Bush was President.
The Uighur flag, a white star and crescent moon on a blue field, emulates secular Turkey's rather than Iran's or Saudi Arabia's.
Thirty-five years ago, an obscure desert in China's far west known by its Uighur name of Lop Nor suddenly became a national symbol.
This is partly because the Taliban sympathise with the ethnic Uighur Islamic militants of western China who are waging a separatist struggle in Xinjiang region.
Long-distance pipelines, easily sabotaged, will prove attractive targets to Uighur guerillas.
But the heart of the book is its relentless litany of Chinese abuses and a direct rebuttal of China's official narrative about its troubled history with the Uighur people.
Meanwhile Chairman of Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region Nur Bekri told Xinhua News Agency that this was neither ethnic nor religious conflict, but a separatist movement that left no space for compromise.
The pent-up anger vented on the streets of Urumqi was chaotic, ignited by reports of the deaths of at least two Uighur toy-factory workers after they had been falsely accused of rape.
Kashgar has long been a hotbed of Uighur separatism, a problem the authorities have recently been trying to cure with a big campaign to turn it into a trading boom town in the mould of those along China's coast.
应用推荐