US to push China to release of prominent Uighur Rebiya Kadeer

Thu Jan 27, 1:18 AM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States said it would push Beijing to release a prominent advocate of women's and minority rights ailing in a Chinese prison.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia Randall Schriver said concerns over 58-year-old Rebiya Kadeer, among the most prominent members of China's Uighur ethnic group in the largely Muslim Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, would be raised with the Chinese government.

He was speaking at a special ceremony at the US Congress in honor of Kadeer after she was named winner of the Norwegian Rafto prize, which each year goes to a human rights advocate.

Schriver said Kadeer's case and other human rights questions would remain on the agenda with China because "the human face is important" in relations between the two powers.

T. Kumar, Amnesty International's Washington-based advocacy director for Asia and Pacific, said President George W. Bush (news - web sites) should give top priority to Kadeer's case because she was arrested while on her way to meet with a US Congressional staff delegation in August 1999.

"President Bush (news - web sites) and newly appointed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) owe this to her and should treat this as their main case with China," he said.

Kadeer was charged a month after her arrest with "providing secret information to foreigners" and ordered jailed for eight years after a secret trial.


Frank Wolf, co-chairman of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, asked the US envoy in Beijing to visit Kadeer, who reportedly is suffering from heart and gall bladder ailments.


Kadeer has one and a half years more to serve her jail term, which was trimmed by one year by the Chinese authorities in 2004.

The mother of 11 has been a symbol of struggle of the approximately eight million Turkish-speaking and mainly Muslim Uighurs, who make up one of China's largest ethnic minority groups.

"She is like the mother and the voice of the oppressed Uighurs," said Nury Turkel, president of the Uighur American Association.

The Xinjiang Uighur region has been autonomous since 1955, but continues to be the subject of major crackdowns by Chinese authorities.

Sidik Rouzi, Kadeer's husband and himself once a political prisoner in China and now residing in the United States, and their daughter Akida Rouzi received the Rafto Prize, named after Norwegian professor Thorolf Rafto who spent most of his life fighting for human rights.