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Exiled Uyghur Dissident Says Family
Detained in Retaliation
2006.06.23 RFA
 WASHINGTON—U.S.-based
Uyghur activist Rebiya Kadeer has said the arrest of
her three adult sons by authorities in China amounts
to retaliation by officials angered by her criticism
of Chinese rule in the region.
“My family in Urumqi has been notified in writing that
my three sons have been arrested and my daughter is
under house arrest,” Kadeer told RFA’s Uyghur service.
”The Chinese government is acting shamelessly. They
know my children are innocent, and they also know that
people around the world won't believe the accusations
against my children,” she said.
The new-born Rebiya Kadeer does not belong just
to herself and to her family.
Rebiya Kadeer
“My children never committed tax fraud. They have
never been involved in politics, they owe nothing to
anyone, and they are well-mannered in their business
and trade with other people.”
Pressure through family
Officials in the predominantly Uyghur region of
Xinjiang, contacted by telephone, declined to comment
on the matter.
Kahar Abdureyim, Ablikim Abdureyim, and Alim Abdureyim
were officially charged last week in the predominantly
Muslim region of Xinjiang, where Kadeer was once
lauded as a model businesswoman and later imprisoned
for her pro-independence views.
Beijing claims it is fighting a war on terror in the
troubled region, where Chinese rule is deeply
unpopular, and where Uyghurs enjoyed two brief periods
of self-rule as East Turkestan during the 20th century.
The authorities have charged Kahar with evading taxes,
Ablikim with conspiracy to overthrow the government,
and Alim with tax evasion and attempts to split the
country, according to the Uyghur American Association,
of which Kadeer is president.
She said any attempts to silence her through her
family back in China would fail.
“Since the Chinese authorities arrested me on Aug. 11,
1999, a new Rebiya Kadeer has been born. The new
Rebiya Kadeer is a part of the world.”
The new Rebiya Kadeer is voice of the twenty
million Uyghur people, the voice of women who had
forced abortions, the voice of the forcibly aborted
child.
Rebiya Kadeer
Self-described voice of millions
“The new Rebiya Kadeer is voice of the 20 million
Uyghur people...Rebiya Kadeer is the voice of
political prisoners, and of innocent people who died
without a voice in prison. She is the voice of
innocent children sold to human-traffickers and
drug-traffickers,” she said.
“The new-born Rebiya Kadeer does not belong just to
herself and to her family,” Kadeer said.
Kadeer, a self-made millionaire jailed for criticizing
Beijing’s heavy-handed rule in mostly Uyghur Xinjiang,
was recently elected president of the nonprofit Uyghur
American Association.
She vowed to work for “human rights and religious
freedom for the Uyghur people in East Turkestan."
Kadeer was handed an eight-year jail term in 1999 en
route to meet with a team of U.S. congressional
researchers.
She was paroled and exiled to the United States in
2005, and she has said she was warned to keep her
criticism of China to herself or her adult children
still in Xinjiang “would be finished.”
The Chinese authorities have accused Uyghur
independence activists of terrorism and blamed them
for more than 260 terrorist acts in Xinjiang over the
last 20 years in which 160 people have died and 440
have been injured.
But human rights groups say China has used its support
for the U.S.-led war on terror to justify a wider
crackdown on Uyghurs characterized by arbitrary
arrests, closed trials and the use of the death
penalty.
Original reporting by RFA’s Uyghur service. Director:
Dolkun Kamberi. Written for the Web in English by
Luisetta Mudie and edited by Sarah Jackson-Han...
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