ALMATY, July 19 (SPA) - Thousands of ethnic Uighursrallied in the Kazakhstan city of Almaty on Sunday to protestagainst a crackdown against Uighurs in the neighbouring Chineseregion of Xinjiang. Around 5,000 Uighurs, including women wearing white scarvesas a sign of mourning, gathered in a Soviet-era congress hall inKazakhstan's biggest city to express their anger at China'scrackdown in its northwestern Muslim region, according to a report of The Associated Press. In Xinjiang's worst ethnic unrest in decades, Uighurs stagedprotests in the regional capital Urumqi on July 5 after a clashat a factory in south China in June left two Uighurs dead. The violence left 197 people dead and more than 1,600wounded. About 1,000 people, mostly Uighurs, have been detained in an ensuing government crackdown. Uighurs are a largely Muslim Turkic people who sharelinguistic and cultural bonds with Central Asia. --SPA www.spa.gov.sa/685709