URUMQI, May 9 -- Five people have received jail terms at a court in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region for inciting separatism and endangering national security, the official Xinjiang Daily reported on Friday.

Sentences ranged from seven years to 15 years after a trial in the Kashagar Prefecture Intermediate People's Court, according to the report.

They were convicted of using electronic devices to spread video and audio material to incite separatist activities, illegally set up preaching sites to spread religious extremism to children and youths, holding lectures to incite ethnic hatred and plotting to commit crimes with controlled knives, it said.

South Xinjiang's Hotan, Kashgar and Aksu are areas overseas separatist forces attempt to penetrate most, where the majority of the population are Muslim Uygurs.