Xinjiang to have 1,500 bilingual judges before 2020

Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is expected to have 1,500 judges who can speak both mandarin Chinese and Uygur language before 2020.

Training bilingual judges is an urgent requirement, said Dainzhub Ngogbang, deputy head of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission, at a conference in the regional capital of Urumqi on Thursday.

Bilingual judges will ensure the ethnic minorities' legal rights are protected and are of great importance to ethnic unity in the region, said Xu Jiaxin, head of the political department with the Supreme People's Court.

Xinjiang is a remote region with more than half of its population ethnic minorities who hold Muslim beliefs. Endit