China will next week try a Uighur journalist and website manager on charges of "endangering state security" after he spoke to foreign journalists about riots in western China, an overseas activist group said on Thursday.

Gheyret Niyaz, whose trial is to take place on July 28, was one of a number of Uighur journalists, webmasters and bloggers detained after ethnic unrest in energy-rich Xinjiang region in July 2009, the Uyghur American Association (UAA) said.

Nearly 200 people died in violence that exploded across the regional capital, Urumqi, after a protest by the minority Turkic Uighurs, who have called the region home for centuries but fear they are being marginalised by Han Chinese.

Most of the dead from the first night of violence were Han Chinese killed by Uighur mobs, but Han gangs seeking vengeance turned on Uighurs in the following days, causing fresh deaths.

"Police reportedly informed the 51-year-old Niyaz when he was initially detained in October 2009 that he was being detained because he had talked with foreign journalists about the unrest that took place in Urumqi," the UAA said in a statement.

Niyaz was also regarded as broadly supportive of Chinese government policy by overseas Uighurs, who were surprised by his detention, the UAA report said. But he criticised economic inequalities and parts of a campaign against "separatism".

Niyaz was an administrator for the website "Uighurbiz" and a journalist with the Xinjiang Economic Daily.
Uighurs say bloggers and website managers were a particular target during a wider crackdown. A string of detentions decimated the small but previously thriving Uighur online community.