Exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer, alleging China has “destroyed” her Muslim people, has urged Japan’s new government not to ignore their plight as it presses to bolster ties with Beijing.
Kadeer was speaking during a visit to Tokyo, where Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s center-left government took power five weeks ago vowing to improve regional ties and to promote an EU-style Asian community.
US-based Kadeer, whom China labels a separatist, arrived on Tuesday for a 10-day visit, her second trip to Japan this year, triggering an immediate protest from China.
Speaking late on Tuesday, Kadeer criticized China for rights abuses but said she was ready to talk with Beijing on improving ethnic minority policies as she seeks “self-determination” for her people.
“I hope Japan will talk with the Chinese government about the problem,” the grandmother and mother-of-11 said. “Japan plays a very important role in Asia. So it’s a responsibility of Japan to talk about the Uighurs’ problems.”
Uighurs have accused China of decades of religious, cultural and political oppression.
On her visit in July, Kadeer said 10,000 Uighurs had “disappeared” after unrest that erupted on July 5 in Urumqi, pitting Uighurs against Han Chinese.
Kadeer said on Tuesday that “according to new information we have obtained, from July 5 to October 1 more than 10,000 Uighurs have been arrested and jailed, but how many have died, or been killed, how many have been jailed, nobody knows the exact number.”
US-based Human Rights Watch said in a report yesterday it had documented the disappearances of 43 men and boys in Xinjiang, but that the real number was likely much higher.
Quoting residents, the group said security forces sealed off entire neighborhoods of Urumqi and hauled away male residents.
“‘Disappearing’ people is not the behavior of countries aspiring to global leadership,” Brad Adams, the Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in the report.
China blames Kadeer for fomenting the unrest, which it says left 197 people dead and more than 1,600 injured, mostly Han. China last week sentenced 12 people to death over the bloody unrest.
Kadeer said she had learned that “out of the 11 Uighurs who were sentenced to death ... nine people have been executed.”
“Punishing people who demonstrated peacefully is not necessary,” she said, speaking though an interpreter.
Kadeer’s pleas to Japan for help, however, run counter to Hatoyama’s declared aim to erase the distrust and frequent animosity that marked Tokyo’s relations with Beijing under previous governments.
Kadeer, a former businesswoman who was jailed in China from 1999 to 2005 and now lives in exile in the US, called on China to allow the Uighur people “self-determination.”
She said her people now wanted autonomy and would decide later on whether to seek full independence.
“We will talk about this point when China sits at the table for negotiations,” she said.
‘CHINESE ASSET’: The senate cited Bamban Mayor Alice Guo in contempt after a police raid revealed a scam center operating at a facility on land she partially owned The Philippine Senate yesterday threatened to arrest a mayor for contempt during a hearing investigating her alleged ties to Chinese criminal syndicates. The arrest threat came after Bamban Mayor Alice Guo (郭華萍) failed to appear for a second consecutive hearing, citing stress. The case that began in March, when authorities raided a casino in Guo’s farming town of Bamban, has shed light on criminal activity in the mostly Chinese-backed online casino industry in the Philippines. It gained national attention after one senator asked whether Guo might not have been born in the Philippines and could even be a Chinese “asset,” an accusation she
‘DO WHATEVER’: US Representative Nancy Pelosi said on MSNBC the decision was up to Joe Biden, but her lack of a full statement backing him is likely to send a signal The re-election campaign of US President Joe Biden on Wednesday hit new trouble as US Representative Nancy Pelosi said merely “it’s up to the president to decide” if he should stay in the race, celebrity donor George Clooney said he should not run, and Democratic senators and lawmakers expressed fresh fear about his ability to challenge former US president Donald Trump. Late in the evening, US Senator Peter Welch called on Biden to withdraw from the election, becoming the first Senate Democrat to do so. Welch said he is worried because “the stakes could not be higher.” The sudden flurry of pronouncements, despite
THREATS: The Japanese leader signaled concern over Russia’s war in Ukraine, its deepening cooperation with North Korea and Chinese posturing against Taiwan Russia’s deepening military cooperation with North Korea has underlined the need for Japan to forge closer ties with NATO as regional security threats become increasingly intertwined, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told Reuters. In written remarks ahead of his attendance at a NATO summit in Washington this week, Kishida also signaled concern over Beijing’s alleged role in aiding Moscow’s two-year-old war in Ukraine, although he did not name China. “The securities of the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific are inseparable, and Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and its deepened military cooperation with North Korea are strong reminders of that,” Kishida said. “Japan is determined to
‘STARWARS’: The weapons would make South Korea the first country to deploy and operate laser weapons, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration said South Korea is to deploy laser weapons to shoot down North Korean drones this year, becoming the world’s first country to deploy and operate such weapons in the military, the country’s arms procurement agency said yesterday. South Korea has called its laser program the “StarWars project.” The drone-zapping laser weapons that the South Korean military has developed with Hanwha Aerospace are effective and cheap, with each shot costing 2,000 won (US$1.45), and also quiet and “invisible,” the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) said in a statement. “Our country is becoming the first country in the world to deploy and operate laser weapons, and