|
China frees top Uighur
prisoner
Thursday, 17 March, 2005, 12:49 GMT
BBC - China has released a leading Uighur political
prisoner, a US-based rights group has said.
Rebiya Kadeer, 58, was allowed to leave China for
medical treatment in the US, the Dui Hua Foundation
said.
Mrs Kadeer, a successful businesswoman, was given
eight years' in jail in 2000 for sending press
cuttings overseas, "endangering national security".
The release comes ahead of US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice's arrival in Beijing on Sunday.
The US has said that resolving the case of the Chinese
Muslim businesswoman was one of its highest priorities
in discussions with China over its human rights record.
Although the release was officially granted for
medical reasons, it is thought to have been prompted
by Ms Rice's arrival, the BBC's Tony Cheng in Beijing
says.
CHINA'S UIGHURS
Ethnically Turkic Muslims, mainly 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
The release was announced as the US said it would not
seek to censure China at the annual meeting of the UN
commission on human rights in Geneva.
"There have been improvements. We have seen progress
in some of the things that we have been working on [with
China]," a US spokeswoman said, without giving any
further details.
Mrs Kadeer boarded a United Airlines flight in
Beijing, the Dui Hua Foundation's statement said.
It said she was accompanied by an official of the US
government.
The Dui Hua Foundation's president, John Kamm,
directly linked the release with Mr Rice's visit to
China.
"I've been led to believe... that the Chinese are
doing this as a gesture for Condi Rice," Mr Kamm was
quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency.
"I was told they wanted to do this before she arrived,"
he said.
'Role model'
A prominent member of the Uighur ethnic minority in
China's north-west Xinjiang province, Mrs Kadeer was
charged with passing information to foreigners,
separatism and attempting to overthrow the state.
According to transcripts, her trial centred on local
newspaper clippings on the treatment of Uighurs that
she had sent to her husband in the US.
China is intolerant of any dissent in the sensitive
border region of Xinjiang, and is worried about
several groups it brands as separatists.
Before her arrest, Mrs Kadeer had been held up as a
role model to China's large Muslim population.
She had owned a prosperous department store and
started a charity helping other Muslim women find work.
She had even been appointed to a seat on one of the
Chinese government's highest consultative bodies.
The rights group Human Rights Watch said it was "thrilled"
about Mrs Kadeer's release, but stressed that China
operated a "revolving door" for political prisoners.
"The fact that the Chinese government releases people
that never should have been in prison in the first
place does not mean human rights are improving in the
country," said Mickey Spiegel, senior researcher of
the group's Asia division. .
|
