China has about 10 million Hui citizens, along with a similar number of Turkish ethnic Uighur Muslims living in the country's far West.

BEIJING, (AP): Clashes between minority Chinese Muslims and the Han majority last month left at least one person dead and 20 injured, a Hong Kong newspaper and human rights group reported Tuesday.

The fighting in the eastern province of Shandong broke out Aug. 17 after a Hui man was caught stealing and beaten by several Han in the town of Shimiao, the Ming Pao newspaper and independent Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy reported.

The Hui man, who was not identified by name, returned to the Muslim neighborhood where several thousand Hui gathered sticks, bricks and other improvised weapons and marched on the town's commercial district.

Police tried to separate the groups but were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers and four police vehicles were smashed.

Only after several hundred members of the paramilitary People's Armed Police were dispatched to the scene did the fighting come under control.

The reports said the clashes had been labeled criminal activity and were currently under investigation, but gave no word of arrests.

People who answered phones at Shimiao government offices refused to answer questions about the reported incident, a likely reflection of the sensitivity surrounding such violence. Official media do not report on ethnic clashes, the likely reason why word of the incident was only just now leaking out.

Numerous violent incidents between Hui and Han have been reported in Shandong and the neighboring province of Henan in recent years, including a Dec. 12, 2000, clash in which police shot dead at least six Hui men.

That incident was sparked by a sign hung from a Han market stall advertising pork that was halal, or approved for consumption by Muslims. Islamic dietary laws strictly prohibit the consumption in any form of pork, the staple meat of the mainstream Han population.

China has about 10 million Hui citizens, along with a similar number of Turkish ethnic Uighur Muslims living in the country's far West.

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