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---In the news---
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International Herald Tribune
Chinese Muslim activist, among candidates for Nobel, says prize would honor her people
The Associated Press
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2006
WASHINGTON A Chinese Muslim businesswoman who spent almost six years in prison without ever being told why says if she were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize it might help her people against "cultural genocide" that China is waging on her people.
Rebiya Kadeer is among an undisclosed number of nominees for the prize to be announced Friday in Oslo, Norway. While the five-member awards committee never gives clues to its thinking, even to confirming names of nominees, there has been speculation in Oslo that the award might go this year to Kadeer or another human rights figure.
"If I were given this Nobel Peace Prize it means so much to my people because my people are facing cultural genocide in this world," Kadeer said Thursday. It would be "recognition of the plight of my people," she said in an interview with Associated Press Television.
Kadeer is a member of the Uighur minority, Muslims from the Xinjiang autonomous region of northwestern China. They are ethnically related to Central Asians, not Chinese.
Kadeer was arrested in 1999 as she approached a hotel where staff members of the U.S. Congressional Research Service waited to meet with her. She was held in solitary confinement for three years and was released only last year after the United States and others agitated for her.
She said the only reason she was given for her arrest was that she had sent Chinese-language newspapers to her husband in the United States. She said, however, the reason probably had more to do with documents she had for the American officials.
"I have been campaigning for the human rights and freedom of the Uighur people peacefully and patiently. My hope is to conduct a dialogue directly with the Chinese government so that the Uighur problem will be resolved," she said in Thursday's television interview.
She said she believed that if her work were to be honored with the Nobel Peace Prize, it would "help the Uighur people to have freedom of speech and live like a human being."
(http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/10/13/
america/NA_GEN_Activist_Nobel_Candidate.php)
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---Who is Rebiya---
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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.
CHINA'S UIGHURS
Ethnically Turkic Muslims, mainly live in Xinjiang
Made bid for independent state in 1940s
Sporadic violence in Xinjiang since 1991
Uighurs worried about Chinese immigration and erosion of traditional culture
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
Published: 2005/03/17 13:13:16 GMT
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---In her own words---
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National Review Online
September 14, 2005, 11:41 a.m.
Beijing & I
The Chinese government says I am a terrorist.
By Rebiya Kadeer
I am a terrorist. I would argue that I'm not, but because the Chinese government says I am a terrorist, it must be true. It will be interesting to see whether President Hu Jintao repeats this accusation against me — and by extension, tars all Uyghur people with the same brush — when he speaks at the United Nations on Thursday.
The Chinese government tries so hard to convince the world of its own infallibility that it must be terrifying when people dare to pull back the veil. And to that extent, if I terrify the Chinese government, then yes, I am a terrorist, and long may it last. I'm by no means the first — they've even called the Dalai Lama a terrorist — and I'm sure I won't be the last.
The Chinese authorities sent me to prison for eight years in 1999 because I'd sent newspaper articles to my husband in America about the plight of the Uyghur people. They accused me of "leaking state secrets to foreign organizations." I'd used my status as a successful businesswoman — once lauded by the same people who later imprisoned me — to work for the protection of Uyghurs' human rights. The Chinese government was so terrified I might say something that impugned their infallibility, they arrested me just as I was about to meet a U.S. congressional research committee in my hometown of Urumchi.
The U.S. government was instrumental in securing my early release from prison in March of this year — a fact that has forever indebted me and my family to the American officials and the people from all over the world who worked on my behalf. Most of all, my early release allowed the Uyghur people to hope that they haven't been overlooked or forgotten by those who believe in human rights and democracy for all.
When I was released, I was warned not to speak on behalf of the Uyghur people when I came to America, or my children and by business would be "finished." I think they were trying to scare me, and to give credit where credit is due, they did. True to their word, they consequently ransacked my office and dragged away two former colleagues who are still in detention. They accused me of owing millions in debts and taxes, and threatened to break every one of my son's ribs if he didn't sign a statement saying this was "true." Who wouldn't be scared by that?
I'm sure this has been said before, but there is a distinction between terror and horror. Terror is felt when we anticipate an horrific event; horror is felt when it actually happens. I am keenly aware of this difference: I have lived with a sense of terror for the fate of Uyghurs for the past few decades; and I have watched in horror as my worst fears have come true.
I have been terrified for young Uyghur mothers who become pregnant when the Chinese government say they shouldn't; and I have been horrified when their pregnancies have been forcibly terminated. I have been terrified for the Uyghurs' ancient culture; and watched horrified as the Chinese authorities have stooped to burning Uyghur books. I have been terrified for those Uyghurs who have stood up and objected; and been horrified when they have been executed as "terrorists." And yes, I have been horrified by the treatment of my friends and family.
And what of the Chinese government? I think the Chinese government is terrified of the day when their corruption, their brutality, their wanton destruction of the environment and neglect of the physical and spiritual health of the people will no longer be tolerated. The Chinese government has every reason to be terrified — it is a terrifying prospect for us all.
And so what can be done to avoid the horror? It will probably seem naïve to suggest that the most important step the Chinese government could take is to start telling the truth, and not "the truth with Chinese characteristics," to coin a phrase. The constant denial of any wrongdoing serves no one: It is common knowledge from Beijing to Geneva to Washington, D.C., that the human rights of people living under Chinese administration are poor to say the least; for Beijing to say otherwise is to dig an ever-deeper moat around itself and to delay the time when human rights will genuinely be protected.
President Hu Jintao must set an urgent example to his administration, and speak the truth on Thursday. Such a top-down approach is far less terrifying than the prospect of more than a billion angry souls demanding the truth.
— Rebiya Kadeer is a businesswoman and human-rights advocate from the Muslim Uighur region in China.
(http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/kadeer200509141141.asp)
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