Representatives of China's ethnic groups and religious circles on Thursday condemned the deadly riot on July 5 that left 156 people dead and more than 1,000 injured in Urumqi, capital of northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

"The riot is neither an ethnic nor religious issue. It is, in nature, an event of serious criminal violence planned abroad and carried out domestically... It's a brutal trampling on human rights and human being's conscience," they said at a symposium hosted by the United Front Work Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.

Attendees to the meeting strongly condemned the violence and expressed their firm support to the measures taken by the Party and the government to cool down the event and ensure the stability of the region.

The United Front Work Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee invited representatives of ethnic groups and the religious circles to the meeting to introduce them related situation of the deadly July 5 riot in Urumqi.

Attendees to the meeting included Yi Cheng, president of the China Buddhist Association, Chen Guangyuan, head of the China Islamic Association, and Gao Feng, president of the China Christian Council.

The attendees said, the citizens' freedom of religious belief had been fully guaranteed and respected in the country, and all ethnic groups and religious circles cherish very much the current situation of solidarity.

They said that they would try their best to tell the truth to the mass of ethnic compatriots and religious believers, expose the villainous scheme of the separatists and guard against new disturbance made by hostile forces.

(Xinhua News Agency July 10, 2009)