Rebiya Kadeer: Photo by European Parliament.

Wasfia Nazreen interviews Rebiya Kadeer of World Uyghur Congress.

As the Urumqi riots broke out in northwestern China, on July 5, the Chinese government was quick to blame the so-called three forces as the instigators of brutal clashes between Uyghurs and Han Chinese that saw 197 dead and more than a thousand injured. Translated from Beijing’ propagandaspeak, three forces actually stands for Uyghur rights activists in exile, campaigning for an end to the ethnic repression of the Uyghur people in China.

One of the leaders of the Uyghur freedom movement, Rebiya Kadeer, has been named by Chinese officials as the mastermind behind the riots. Kadeer – the president of the World Uyghur Congress – currently lives in exile in the United States, and, is known as the Mother of the Uyghurs. From 1999 to 2005, she was a political prisoner in China for her role as an advocate for Uyghur rights and freedom. At the time of her imprisonment, Amnesty International declared her a prisoner of conscience.

Wasfia Nazreen: In 2008, when riots broke out in Tibet, there was a worldwide outcry and an outpour of international support for the Tibetans. This is largely absent when it comes to the ethnic repression of the Uyghurs by the Chinese regime. How do you see this?

Rebiya Kadeer: First of all, it is because of their [international community] lack of understanding of the plight of the Uyghurs. Second, the Chinese government has been able to portray the Uyghur people’s legitimate struggle as linked to international terrorism, which is of course not true. Third, because of the current global economic crisis and the close economic and trade relation between Western democracies and China, many countries are hesitant to criticise China’s brutal crackdown of the Uyghurs.

The relationship between Uyghur freedom advocates and Chinese democracy activists, how does it work? Is there a divide when it comes to Chinese position on Uyghur self-rule?

We have good relations with Chinese dissidents. They support our peaceful efforts to struggle for freedom, democracy and human rights. But most of them are more concerned with the current territorial integrity of China than granting Uyghurs or Tibetans self-rule. Some support Uyghurs and Tibetans only if both Uyghurs and Tibetans remain under Chinese rule in the future.

Some Uyghur activists say that China’s treatment of its Uyghur population amounts to the crime of apartheid. What is the basis for this allegation?

There is no question that the Chinese rule in East Turkestan [Xinjiang] can be considered as apartheid. Almost all the sections of Article II [of the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid] are applicable to China’s treatment of the Uyghurs: the denial of right to life and liberty; subjecting Uyghurs to torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment; arbitrary arrest and illegal imprisonment; exploitation of the Uyghurs by means of forced labour; deliberately imposed living conditions calculated to cause the Uyghur people’s physical destruction in whole in the long-term. The situation in East Turkestan, is not any different than what had happened in South Africa. It is probably worse.♦

Wasfia Nazreen is a member of Students for a Free Tibet, http://www.studentsforafreetibet.org. World Uyghur Congress website is available at: http://www.uyghurcongress.org