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The Chinese government says I am a terrorist.
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35 Views
08/10/07
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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
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Rebiya Kadeer, with Alexandra Cavelius The Stormer of the Sk
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44 Views
08/10/07
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Rebiya Kadeer, China?s most well-known dissident, was at one time the richest and most powerful woman of the People?s Republic. But when she began to struggle for the rights of her people, the Uigurs, an Islamic minority in China, she became the most hated woman in the regime. She spent five years in prison, where she witnessed torture, rape, and executions. Her moving life story is just as dramatic as it is politically volatile. Rebiya Kadeer has been tirelessly fighting for the rights of her people for decades, who in the former East Turkestan of northwestern China, have been peacefully demanding their basic religious, cultural, and economic rights from Beijing. But the Chinese government has not been charitable. Justifying its rigid attitude against the Uigurs as a fight against international terrorism, it mercilessly persecutes, tortures and kills its enemies.
The price that Rebiya Kadeer must pay for her political engagement is high, far more than just the value of her department store empire. After human rights organisations around the world demanded her release from prison, she moved with her husband to the USA. Yet five of her eleven children are still in China, used by the government in effect as collateral against even minor political activities of their mother. Because of all that has happened, she came to the decision to work with Alexandra Cavelius in publishing her dramatic autobiography and so to bring attention to the prevailing conditions in China ? a tremendously volatile and explosive political topic.
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