Hi Folks,
Rebiya Kadeer is the Uyghur activist mentioned by Dru Gladney during the workshop. The essay below appeared in the Wall Street Journal on May 30.

My Chinese Jailers

By REBIYA KADEER
WSJ, May 30, 2007; Page A19

Nothing compares to a mother's pain when her children are suffering. The anguish is even greater when the suffering is designed as an act of retaliation by a vindictive government determined to punish those who speak out against its egregious human-rights violations.

Upon my release in 2005 after five years in a Chinese prison, I was warned by the Chinese authorities not to speak out on human rights. I should not forget that I had family in China, I was told.

The Chinese government certainly lived up to its word. My family has been under constant pressure from authorities and my children have been repeatedly detained, tortured or imprisoned. Now my son Ablikim Abdureyim has joined his youngest brother Alim in prison. Ablikim received a nine- year sentence from a Chinese court on charges of "instigating and engaging in secessionist activities."

The real reason for his conviction is my human-rights activism on behalf of the 10 million Turkic Uighurs who live in China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, the former East Turkestan. Constantly being labeled terrorists for even the most modest attempt to preserve their unique culture, ethnic background and Muslim faith, Uighurs in Xinjiang continue to suffer under Beijing's repression and forced cultural assimilation.
China's long and powerful arm prevents them from finding safety in countries bordering Xinjiang, and Uighurs are harassed by Chinese agents even in Europe and the U.S.

Ablikim's arrest, detention, trial and sentence were all in violation of China's Constitution: My son should have had access to a lawyer; he did not. My son should have had the right to a public trial; yet no family member was allowed to attend his trial or even notified of its existence.
Numerous attempts to simply determine his condition were met with stonewalling and frustration.

Unfortunately, mine is just one of countless Uighur families that have been devastated by the Communist Party's use of vaguely defined "state security crimes." In the same week, and in the same court that my son was sentenced to nine years imprisonment, Uighur-Canadian Huseyin Celil was sentenced to life in prison on charges of "terrorist activities"
and "plotting to split the country." No evidence against Mr. Celil was made public. In addition, Beijing acted in defiance of international law by refusing to acknowledge his Canadian citizenship and denying him consular assistance.

In recent years, and especially as the 2008 Beijing Olympics approach, Chinese leaders have repeatedly claimed progress on human rights.
President Hu Jintao has again and again stressed the importance of respecting the rule of law as a cornerstone of a new and improved China.
In a speech at Yale University last year he promised to "protect people's freedom, democracy and human rights according to law."

Yet true rule of law is still a foreign concept in China, for any ethnic group, including the majority Han Chinese. Imprisoning its own people and stripping them of their legal rights at the whim of the authorities is just another way that the Chinese government seeks to eliminate any form of dissent. Polished political leaders in Beijing are eager to say what they believe the world wants to hear, while other government officials, particularly on the local level, routinely break the laws of their own country. All too often the international community is content to listen to the false promises of China's politicians and ignore the miserable reality of China's human-rights conditions.

China will only become a great nation worthy of world-wide respect when it adheres to international legal and human-rights standards throughout its territory, and can guarantee those standards to all its citizens. If Beijing really wants to show the world that it is serious about improving its human-rights record, releasing my two sons and Huseyin Celil would be a good place to start.

Ms. Kadeer is the president of the Uyghur American Association and World Uyghur Congress.

The following is the profile of Rebiya Kadeer, Uyghurs Activist fighting for Political freedom of her minority group in China. She is a fasinating woman, who has both business and political sense.

_________________________________________

Profile: Rebiya Kadeer
Rebiya Kadeer was a successful businesswoman and philanthropist in China's restive Xinjiang until her arrest in 1999 for allegedly endangering national security.

Her crime, the authorities said, was to send local newspaper reports about the activities of Xinjiang's ethnic Turkish-speaking Uighurs to her US-based husband, even though these were freely available.

It was a sharp reversal in fortunes for someone whose local achievements the Communist government had until then trumpeted.

Mrs Kadeer, twice-married and the mother of at least 11 children, grew up in poverty but at the time of her release was known locally as "the millionairess".

Human Rights Watch researcher Mickey Spiegel, who has met Mrs Kadeer's family several times, described her as "a very enterprising woman, who was able to bring herself up, in a sense, by her bootstraps".

After working as a laundress, Mrs Kadeer founded and directed a large trading company in Xinjiang, and used her wealth to provide fellow Uighurs with employment and training.

Partly as a result, she was appointed to China's national advisory group, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), and sent as one of the country's delegates to the United Nations World Conference on Women in 1995.

But her treatment by the authorities changed, rights organisations say, when her Uighur husband and former political prisoner Sidik Rouzi fled China for the US in 1996.

He had previously been imprisoned for campaigning against China's treatment of the ethnic minority, which make up more than half the mainly Muslim population of Xinjiang.

Mrs Kadeer's passport was seized, she was harassed by police and, in 1998, barred from reappointment to the CPPCC.

Before her arrest, Mrs Kadeer was running the 1,000 Families Mothers' Project, which helped Uighur women start businesses.

Arrest

She was detained in August 1999, on her way to meet a visiting delegation from the United States Congressional Research Service to complain about political prisoners in Xinjiang.

She was convicted of endangering state security by the Urumqi Intermediate People's Court on 10 March, 2000.

Her eight-year sentence was set to expire on 12 August, 2007, but was cut by 12 months last year for good behaviour.

Her health had reported to have deteriorated in prison.

Her children who had visited her there have frequently commented on "how quiet, how morose she had become," Ms Spiegel said.

Mrs Kadeer was in hospital at the time of her release, though it is not clear what she was being treated for.

The US Congress had repeatedly voiced its concerns about Mrs Kadeer's imprisonment to the Chinese authorities.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/4357607.stm