Exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer on Monday called on the international community to probe the deadly violence that rocked China’s Xinjiang region over the weekend, accusing Beijing of fudging the truth and playing down the death toll.
“We hope that the UN, the US and the EU will send teams to investigate what really took place in Xinjiang,” Kadeer told reporters, after Chinese state media said at least 156 people were killed and 1,080 injured in the clashes.
“We hope the White House will issue a stronger statement urging the Chinese government to show restraint and also to tell the truth of the nature of the events and what happened, and to tell the Chinese government to redress Uighur grievances,” she said.
PHOTO: AFP
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the US was “deeply concerned” about the reported deaths in Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi on Sunday and called for both sides in the remote northwestern province to “exercise restraint.”
China has blamed what it termed riots squarely on the Turkic-speaking Uighurs.
Yesterday, Chinese authorities announced the mass arrest of more than 1,400 people in connection with the protests, while at least 200 people staged fresh demos in Urumqi before foreign reporters.
Beijing has also accused Kadeer of fomenting the unrest from her exile in the US.
“These accusations are completely false,” she said. “I did not organize the protests or call on people to demonstrate. My only contact with any Uighur [is] inside East Turkestan,” she said, using the Uighur name for Xinjiang, citing a call “in recent days” to her brother in Urumqi in which she told him of announcements her daughters had seen on the Internet about plans to demonstrate on Sunday.
“I urged my brother to stay at home that day and to ask my other family members to stay at home as well, fearing that they may be subject to violence at the hands of the authorities if they ventured outside,” Kadeer said. “In no way did I call on anyone, at any time, to demonstrate within East Turkestan.”
About 40 members of Kadeer’s family are still China, including five sons, two of whom are in jail.
Kadeer said the immediate cause of Sunday’s planned protest march were attacks on Uighur workers at a toy factory in eastern China — where Uighurs are shipped against their will to serve as “cheap labor,” she said.
But the deeper cause, Kadeer added, was six decades of Chinese rule, during which the Uighurs have endured a litany of human rights abuses such as arbitrary detention, torture, discrimination, religious repression, forced abortion and removing Uighur language teaching from schools.
The Chinese government was also shipping “young Uighur women and men to eastern China, as millions of Chinese migrants are encouraged by the government to come to East Turkestan to work,” she said.
In response to the protests, the Chinese authorities sent in fully armed security forces, who were under orders to “open fire without warning shots” to brutally quash what was supposed to be a peaceful demonstration, said Kadeer.
She showed a photograph, taken from a Uighur Web site, showing a row of demonstrators in Urumqi facing off against at least six rows of security forces. Chinese officials have given no breakdown of the victims of Sunday’s violence, but Kadeer said she believes that “probably 90 percent were Uighurs.”
She also speculated that the death toll was higher than 156.
“The Chinese authorities usually downplay numbers in such tragic events,” she said.
“We were contacted by some of the people at Xinjiang University and we were told that on the day of the protest, on the 5th, nearly 400 people were killed … A lot of them were killed in front of the university by the security forces,” she said.
The Uighurs were turning to the West for help because the Muslim world has remained silent in the face of their plight, she said, blaming the silence on a highly effective Chinese propaganda campaign.
“To Muslim countries, the Chinese portray Uighurs as pro-Western, very modern Muslims, not genuine Muslims. To the West, the Chinese label Uighurs as Muslims, terrorists linked to al-Qaeda,” she said.
“The propaganda has been very effective,” she said.
FRAUD ALLEGED: The leader of an opposition alliance made allegations of electoral irregularities and called for a protest in Tirana as European leaders are to meet Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama’s Socialist Party scored a large victory in parliamentary elections, securing him his fourth term, official results showed late on Tuesday. The Socialist Party won 52.1 percent of the vote on Sunday compared with 34.2 percent for an alliance of opposition parties led by his main rival Sali Berisha, according to results released by the Albanian Central Election Commission. Diaspora votes have yet to be counted, but according to initial results, Rama was also leading there. According to projections, the Socialist Party could have more lawmakers than in 2021 elections. At the time, it won 74 seats in the
EUROPEAN FUTURE? Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama says only he could secure EU membership, but challenges remain in dealing with corruption and a brain drain Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama seeks to win an unprecedented fourth term, pledging to finally take the country into the EU and turn it into a hot tourist destination with some help from the Trump family. The artist-turned-politician has been pitching Albania as a trendy coastal destination, which has helped to drive up tourism arrivals to a record 11 million last year. US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, also joined in the rush, pledging to invest US$1.4 billion to turn a largely deserted island into a luxurious getaway. Rama is expected to win another term after yesterday’s vote. The vote would
A Croatian town has come up with a novel solution to solve the issue of working parents when there are no public childcare spaces available: pay grandparents to do it. Samobor, near the capital, Zagreb, has become the first in the country to run a “Grandmother-Grandfather Service,” which pays 360 euros (US$400) a month per child. The scheme allows grandparents to top up their pension, but the authorities also hope it will boost family ties and tackle social isolation as the population ages. “The benefits are multiple,” Samobor Mayor Petra Skrobot told reporters. “Pensions are rather low and for parents it is sometimes
CANCER: Jose Mujica earned the moniker ‘world’s poorest president’ for giving away much of his salary and living a simple life on his farm, with his wife and dog Tributes poured in on Tuesday from across Latin America following the death of former Uruguayan president Jose “Pepe” Mujica, an ex-guerrilla fighter revered by the left for his humility and progressive politics. He was 89. Mujica, who spent a dozen years behind bars for revolutionary activity, lost his battle against cancer after announcing in January that the disease had spread and he would stop treatment. “With deep sorrow, we announce the passing of our comrade Pepe Mujica. President, activist, guide and leader. We will miss you greatly, old friend,” Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi wrote on X. “Pepe, eternal,” a cyclist shouted out minutes later,
RSS