Dozens of protesters demanding the release of ethnic Mongolians arrested in China for criticising a controversial language policy rallied in the Mongolian capital Thursday, days before a visit by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The country of Mongolia neighbours China's province of Inner Mongolia, which has seen weeks of protests and school boycotts over a policy requiring schools to teach politics, history, and literature in Mandarin rather than the local language.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will stop in Ulaanbaatar during an Asia tour next week that also includes Japan and South Korea but omits China.

Some protesters -- wearing facemasks as a precaution against the coronavirus -- were dressed in traditional Mongolian outfits and carried banners showing pictures of alleged Chinese atrocities against ethnic Mongolians.

Pompeo has previously criticised China's coercive attempts to assimilate local minorities into the dominant Han population.

Ethnic Mongolians in China and elsewhere fear the move -- which limits the opportunity to use Mongolian in schools -- will lead to the language's extinction.

Chinese Foreign minister Wang Yi's visit to Mongolia last month was also overshadowed by protests.

"During the Wang Yi's visit Mongolian leadership should have spoken up and stated that China must release the arrested Inner Mongolians," protester Elbegdorj told AFP.

Rallies in Inner Mongolia last month were the largest seen for decades, but a crackdown was swift, with armoured vehicles surrounding schools in some areas.

Police also offered cash bounties for leads on ringleaders and publicised the arrests of dozens of suspects accused of gathering signatures and sharing dissenting messages on WeChat.

The clampdown echoes Beijing's moves in Xinjiang and Tibet, where similar policies to assimilate local minorities into the dominant Han population were implemented in line with Xi's vision of national and ideological unity through cultural identity.

"Obtaining an education in its native language is universally recognised human rights," protest organiser Zolzaya Nyamdorj said.

"China is violating those rights."

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Around 500 people gathered at the city's Beyazit square, holding up pictures of their missing families and unfurled banners reading: "Where's my family?", "Free my family" and "Shut down concentration camps!"

The group, which included children, called for an end to the crackdown in China's northwestern region -- where more than one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim Turkic-speaking residents are believed to be held in camps.

China is running hundreds of detention centres in northwest Xinjiang across a network that is much bigger than previously thought, according to research presented last month by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) thinktank.

The number of facilities is around 40 percent greater than previous estimates, the research said, and has been growing despite China's claims that many Uighurs have been released.

Beijing has denied the existence of detention sites. The government says they are vocational training centres used to counter extremism.

Not many Muslim leaders have openly criticised the treatment of Uighurs with the exception of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, which has linguistic and cultural connections with the Uighurs.

Mukerrem Kutar, one of the protesters holding up pictures of her missing relatives, said: "I cannot get news from my family, I have no news at all from my brother, his son and their whole family."

She told AFP: "I have no idea if they are alive, dead, in camps. I want to find out where they are."

Yunus Abduzahir, 25 and a student, said he had lost contact with his family since 2006.

"The last time I heard from them, my mother, my father and my older brother were detained and my brother was sent to a forced labour camp," he said.

"My mother, had to leave her two-year-old kid and had to live in a different city, I don't know where she is... She had a two-year-old she had to look after, but I imagine that in spite of that they took her and sent her to a concentration camp."

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