Exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer yesterday accused China of carrying out “psychological torture” on her children by forcing them to appear on state television to blame her for deadly unrest.
Kadeer said her daughter Roxingul and jailed son Alim had taken part “against their will” in the CCTV news report, in which they said she incited last month’s violence in the Xinjiang region which left at least 197 dead.
“What the Chinese government did was probably one of the worst kinds of violence, I would say, against my children to force them to speak up against me,” Kadeer, speaking through a translator, told journalists in Melbourne.
“I believe it’s against their conscience, against their will, to force them to say the things against me, and I believe it’s a form of dictatorship imposed upon them by the government,” she said.
Roxingul, Alim and Kadeer’s brother Memet denounced the 62-year-old US-based Uighur leader in a report aired on Tuesday, saying she had whipped up China’s worst ethnic violence in decades — a claim also made by Beijing.
“What my mother has done has no result. Separatists cannot separate such a great nation, neither can she,” Alim said from prison, where he is serving a sentence for tax evasion.
Roxingul, Memet and Khahar, another of Kadeer’s sons, had earlier written letters widely circulated in the Chinese press denouncing her over the unrest in Urumqi.
“It’s hard for me to imagine what kind of psychological torture they are going through at the moment,” Kadeer said.
“When I was in prison I was also forced to say things against my will by the Chinese government on a videotape and [it was] posted on a Web site, so it’s no surprise to me,” she said.
The mother of 11 was once a successful businesswoman in Xinjiang, but spent six years in a Chinese jail and has become a standard-bearer for the Uighur movement since her release in 2005. Her visit to Australia sparked strong protests from Beijing, which calls her a “criminal” and summoned Canberra’s ambassador to complain.
Kadeer is due to attend a premiere on Saturday of a documentary about her life, 10 Conditions of Love, which China tried to have withdrawn from the Melbourne International Film Festival.
“It’s just like the Olympics and China —it was just an international sporting event, but the Chinese government turned that into a political event,” said Kadeer, adding she was “shocked” by Beijing’s reaction.
“It’s the same thing I see with the film festival: initially it’s just a film festival, but with the Chinese pressure it became politicized,” she said.
“I am only peacefully advocating rights and justice and freedom for my people, but it’s been witnessed that the Chinese government put enormous pressure on Japan during my recent visit, and also put enormous pressure on Turkey, now Australia,” she said.
“I believe the Chinese government is basically trying to impose its authoritarianism on the whole world because of me,” she said.
China is inflaming ethnic tensions by deceiving its own people about the Xinjiang riots, she said.
“The Chinese people should be very careful with the Chinese government’s versions of the events and the ways and means the Chinese government employ ... to deceive, to some extent, the Chinese people, to create this kind of terrible relationship between two groups,” Kadeer said.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying