When rioting broke out between ethnic Han Chinese and Uighurs, a Turkic Muslim people, in far western China last July, the longtime regional Communist Party head, Wang Lequan, accused Rebiya Kadeer, the exiled Uighur leader, of instigating them from abroad. The riots, he said, “revealed Rebiya’s nature of fake human rights, fake democracy, true violence and true terrorism.”
While still living in China, Kadeer had been well known to Wang and other cadres. Before being sentenced to jail in 1999 she rose to heights of wealth and influence within the Communist system, even being appointed to official government bodies. (As a delegate to the 1996 women’s conference in Beijing, Kadeer met then-First Lady Hillary Clinton. Unlike Condoleezza Rice, however, Secretary of State Clinton has not deigned to meet Kadeer.)
