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Pedro Gonçalves

Q&A: Rebiya Kadeer on China's Uighur Riots | Newsweek International | Newsweek.com - 0 views

  • Rebiya Kadeer, an elfin grandmother with gray-tinged pigtails who was released from a Chinese prison in March 2005 and immediately whisked into exile. A former millionaire once praised by Beijing as a model businesswoman, Kadeer now lives near Washington, D.C. She is recognized as the leader of the Uighur exile community and heads the Uyghur American Association and the World Uyghur Congress; both groups receive grants from the bipartisan National Endowment for Democracy funded by the U.S. Congress
  • my family has been a target of Chinese government persecution. Whenever something happens, authorities go after my family. My two sons are in prison. Even my grandchildren have been kicked out of school.
  • You mentioned your two sons in prison. What were they charged with and what are their prison terms?In 2006 one was sentenced to seven years and the other to nine years, on charges of tax evasion and separatism, respectively.
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  • And you were arrested in 1999 on charges of revealing state secrets. Is it true that these "secrets" included official newspapers published openly in Xinjiang?Yes, it's true. I had state-run newspapers with articles stating the numbers of deaths, arrests, and executions of Uighurs and with printed speeches by leaders saying they needed to "strike hard" against Uighurs. I sent these ordinary newspapers to my husband [who was then overseas]. These were openly available publications.
  • It would be great if the U.S. government could open a consulate in Urumqi. Then it could monitor events on the ground and the Chinese government couldn't just crack down.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Scores killed in China protests - 0 views

  • Violence in China's restive western region of Xinjiang has left at least 140 people dead and more than 800 people injured, state media say.Several hundred people were also arrested after a protest turned violent in the city of Urumqi on Sunday.
  • The protest was reportedly prompted by a deadly fight between Uighurs and Han Chinese in southern China last month. The BBC's Chris Hogg in Shanghai says that if the numbers of dead are to be believed - and state media say they may rise - this look like the bloodiest violence in China since Tiananmen Square 20 years ago.
  • Uighur exiles said police had fired indiscriminately on a peaceful protest in Urumqi.
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  • The Xinjiang government blamed separatist Uighurs based abroad for orchestrating attacks on ethnic Han Chinese. Eyewitnesses said the violence started on Sunday with a few hundred people, and grew to more than 1,000.
  • The Uighurs were reportedly angry over an ethnic clash last month in the city of Shaoguan in southern Guangdong province. A man there was said to have posted a message on a local website claiming six boys from Xinjiang had "raped two innocent girls". Police said the false claim sparked a vicious brawl between Han and Uighur ethnic groups at a factory. Two Uighurs were killed and 118 people were injured.
  • the Xinjiang government has blamed the latest unrest on businesswoman Rebiya Kadeer, the Uighurs' leader who is living in exile in the United States. "An initial investigation showed the violence was masterminded by the separatist World Uighur Congress led by Rebiya Kadeer," the government said in a statement, according to Xinhua. It said the violence had been "instigated and directed from abroad".
Pedro Gonçalves

China's Hu skips G8 to deal with Xinjiang riots | International | Reuters - 0 views

  • Along with Tibet, Xinjiang is one of the most politically sensitive regions in China. It is strategically located at the borders of Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, has abundant oil reserves and is China's largest natural gas-producing region.
  • But controlling the anger on both sides of the ethnic divide will now make controlling Xinjiang, with its gas reserves and trade and energy ties to central Asia, all the more testing for the ruling Communist Party.
  • Xinjiang has long been a tightly controlled hotbed of ethnic tensions, fostered by an economic gap between many Uighurs and Han Chinese, government controls on religion and culture and an influx of Han migrants who now are the majority in most key cities, including Urumqi. There were attacks in the region before and during last year's Summer Olympics in Beijing.
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  • The government has blamed Sunday's killings on exiled Uighurs seeking independence for their homeland, especially Rebiya Kadeer, a businesswoman and activist now living in exile in the United States.
  • "This was a massive conspiracy by hostile forces at home and abroad, and their goal was precisely to sabotage ethnic unity and provoke ethnic antagonism," the Communist Party boss of Xinjiang, Wang Lequan, said in a speech.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Troops flood into China riot city - 0 views

  • Thousands of security forces have been deployed in the city of Urumqi in China's Xinjiang region to try to end deadly ethnic clashes.
  • The BBC's Quentin Sommerville, reporting from Urumqi's Uighur neighbourhood, says there are thousands of paramilitary police in the city in a situation he says is martial law in all but name.
  • Reporters from the AFP news agency said they had seen fresh violence on Wednesday, including one attack on a Uighur man by about 20 Han Chinese.
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  • In another incident they said about 200 Uighurs carrying sticks and pipes protested in front of a police cordon.
  • Officials say 156 people - mostly Han Chinese - died in Sunday's violence. Uighur groups say many more have died, claiming 90% of the dead were Uighurs.
  • China's authorities have repeatedly claimed that exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer is stirring up trouble in the region. But she told the BBC she was not responsible for any of the violence.
  • Chinese authorities say the Xinjiang separatists are terrorists with links to al-Qaeda and receive support from outside the country.
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