China is expected to put more than 200 people on trial this week for alleged involvement in deadly unrest in the country's northwest Muslim-majority region of Xinjiang, state media said Monday.

The trials will take place in the Intermediate People's Court in Urumqi, the regional capital shaken by violence in early July that cost the lives of at least 197, the China Daily reported, citing unnamed officials.

The more than 200 defendants have all been formally arrested, marking a steep increase from the 83 formal arrests so far made public by authorities, according to the paper.

The violence that broke out in Urumqi on July 5 pitted Han Chinese against Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking and predominantly Muslim people, in the worst ethnic unrest to hit the country in decades.

The defendants will face charges ranging from disrupting traffic to murder, the paper said, meaning that some of them could be given the death penalty.

The paper did not say how many of the defendants were Uighurs. However, it reported that more than 170 Uighur and 20 Han lawyers had been assigned, suggesting that the bulk were members of the minority group.

(Source: AFP)