As if there weren’t enough negative articles about China this week, Human Rights Watch has released a devastating report on China’s organized persecution of the Uygurs in Xinjiang province.

China has stepped up a campaign of religious persecution against its minority Uighur population in the western region of Xinjiang even though the government has already eliminated any organized resistance to Beijing’s rule there, two leading human rights groups said in a joint report to be released Tuesday.

The groups, Human Rights Watch and Human Rights in China, quoted secret Communist Party and government documents as detailing a range of new policies that tighten controls on religious worship, assembly and artistic expression among Xinjiang’s eight million Turkic-speaking Muslims, including strict rules on teaching religion to minors.

China adopted some of the measures, the groups said, after it persuaded the Bush administration that a little known Uighur exile group, the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, was responsible for terrorist acts and belonged on America’s list of leading terrorist threats. The groups said China has used isolated terrorist acts to justify a wholesale crackdown on its Uighur Muslim population.

“China is using the suppression of religion as a whip over Uighurs who challenge or even chafe at Chinese rule of Xinjiang,” Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “In other parts of China, individuals have a little more space to worship as they choose. But Uighur Muslims are facing state-ordered discrimination and crackdowns.”

What a shame. There was some important news out about China’s groundbreaking outreach to India, but it’s been totally eclipsed by the steady stream of negative stories.