A US-based prominent Muslim Uighur dissident on Friday dismissed China's claim that she was plotting with "terrorist groups" to disrupt the anniversary of Beijing's takeover of the Xinjiang region.
"The Chinese government wants to silence my voice before the international community with such unsubstantiated charges," said Rebiya Kadeer, a top advocate for the rights of the Muslim Uighur minority in Xianjiang.
Uighur separatists have been fighting to re-establish an independent state called East Turkestan in Xinjiang since it became part of China in 1955.
Xinjiang's top communist official Wang Lequan (
"Rebiya had met with heads of terrorist groups abroad to plot to sabotage the celebration for the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region," he said in a Xinhua report.
Kadeer, released from jail in March on medical parole after being jailed for six years for leaking "state secrets," said that Beijing had levelled other unsubstantiated charges against her.
"Speaking out against the Chinese government's gross violations of the fundamental human rights of the Uighur people is not terrorism," she said in a statement issued in Washington by the World Uighur Congress.
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