Ammon News - By William Foreman And Gillian Wong

AMMONNEWS (AP) - URUMQI, China – China raised the death toll from riots in Xinjiang to 184, state media said Saturday, adding that most of those killed were Han Chinese in the first ethnic breakdown of the number since communal violence erupted in the far west.

The official Xinhua News Agency said 137 victims were from the dominant Han group, 46 were Uighurs, and one was a Hui Muslim, citing the regional government's information office.

Overseas groups and even some Uighurs in Urumqi challenged those numbers, citing persistent rumors that security forces fired on Uighurs during their original protest and in following days. Turkey's prime minister compared the violence to genocide.

The previous death toll was 156. Xinhua gave no details on the newly reported deaths, including whether any were from Tuesday, when Han men seeking revenge for violence during the initial riots marched through the streets with clubs and cleavers, trying to push past police guarding minority neighborhoods.

On Saturday, paramilitary police carrying automatic weapons and riot shields blocked some roads leading to the largely Muslim Uighur district of the city, and groups of 30 marched along the road chanting slogans encouraging ethnic unity.

Some shops were still closed, and a police van blared public announcements in the Uighur language urging residents to oppose activist Rebiya Kadeer, a 62-year-old Uighur businesswoman who lives in exile in the U.S., whom China says instigated the riots. She has denied it.

Kadeer, president of the pro-independence World Uighur Congress, and other overseas activists say that many more Uighurs have died than the number confirmed by Chinese officials. They accuse authorities of downplaying the toll to cover up killings by Chinese security forces.

Kadeer has said she believes at least 500 people have been killed in the riots. Other overseas groups have put the toll even higher, citing reports from Uighurs in China.

China has said it took steps to restore stability after the riot, but has not explained why so many people died.

Uighurs in Urumqi also said they feared their death toll is much higher but were wary of talking about the numbers.

"I've heard that more than 100 Uighurs have died, but nobody wants to talk about it in public," said one Uighur man who did not want to give his name, saying the situation was sensitive.

A Han Chinese man who would only give his surname, Ma, meanwhile, said he thought the government numbers were correct.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey — where daily protests have voiced support for the Uighurs with whom Turks share ethnic and cultural bonds — urged Beijing to prevent attacks on the minority group.

"These incidents in China are as if they are genocide," said Erdogan. "We ask the Chinese government not to remain a spectator to these incidents. There is clearly a savagery here."

The violence last Sunday followed a protest against the June 26 deaths of Uighur factory workers in a brawl in southern China. The crowd then scattered throughout Urumqi, attacking Han Chinese, burning cars and smashing windows.

Many Uighurs who are still free live in fear of being arrested for any act of dissent.

Thousands of Chinese troops have flooded into Urumqi to separate the feuding ethnic groups, and a senior Communist Party official vowed to execute those guilty of murder in the rioting.

A report in the Urumqi Evening News on Friday said police caught 190 suspects in four raids the day before.

The government believes the Uighurs should be grateful for Xinjiang's rapid economic development, which has brought new schools, highways, airports, railways, natural gas fields and oil wells in the sprawling, rugged Central Asian region, three times the size of Texas.

But many of the Turkic-speaking Uighurs, with a population of 9 million in Xinjiang, accuse the dominant Han ethnic group of discriminating against them and saving all the best jobs for themselves. Many also say the Communist Party is repressive and tries to snuff out their Islamic faith, language and culture.

AP Photo – A helicopter flies past the crescent spiral of a mosque in Urumqi, China, Saturday, July 11, 2009.