GENEVA, March 3 (Xinhua) -- Xinjiang has been a focus of Western media in recent years, but some of their irresponsible coverage is pampering terrorists and thus detrimental to the stability and development there, a scholar told a symposium held here on Monday.

Zheng Liang, professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, China's Jinan University, said that after studying 676 articles published on major Western media in 16 years from 2000 to 2015, he found that those reports often construct Xinjiang as a "Uyghur region" and portray violent terrorists' behaviors in Xinjiang as "ethnic conflict."

China accuses terrorists of orchestrating those attacks, but some Western media tend to downplay the radical fundamentalist ideology, Zheng said.

Speaking at the symposium on counter-terrorism, de-radicalization, and promotion and protection of human rights, Zheng said that Western media tend to portray violent incidents in Xinjiang as "ethic conflict," but they are actually of the same nature as terrorism.

Monday's international symposium was jointly sponsored by the Mission of China to UN at Geneva, the Mission of Cameron to UN at Geneva, and the China Society of Human Rights Studies.