Pressure China on civil rights: Uighur leader
Dan Oakes
March 24, 2011AUSTRALIA and other countries need to press China's leadership more on civil rights for ethnic minorities in the Asian giant, according to exiled Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer.
Speaking at Federal Parliament yesterday, the grandmother and former political prisoner also claimed that the Chinese government was moving young Uighur women from their homeland in the far west of the country to big cities in the east to change the demographics in the Uighur region.
Ms Kadeer called on the Australian government to be more forceful in pursuing the question of human rights during bilateral meetings with the Chinese government.
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Ms Kadeer painted a dark portrait of conditions in the Uighur homeland, which the Chinese government calls the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, but the Uighurs call East Turkmenistan.
''An official policy recruits young Uighur women from majority Uighur areas of East Turkmenistan and transfers them to work in factories in urban areas of east China,'' Ms Kadeer said through an interpreter. Already some 400,000 women have been transferred.
Pressure China on civil rights: Uighur leader
---------- Post added at 01:01 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:00 AM ----------
Uighurs take heart from Middle East events
Dan Oakes
March 24, 2011AUSTRALIA and other countries need to press China's leadership more on civil rights for ethnic minorities in the Asian giant, according to exiled Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer.
Speaking at Federal Parliament yesterday, the grandmother and former political prisoner also claimed that the Chinese government was moving young Uighur women from their homeland in the far west of the country to big cities in the east to change the demographics in the Uighur region.
Ms Kadeer called on the Australian government to be more forceful in pursuing the question of human rights during bilateral meetings with the Chinese government.
Advertisement: Story continues below
Ms Kadeer painted a dark portrait of conditions in the Uighur homeland, which the Chinese government calls the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, but the Uighurs call East Turkmenistan.
''An official policy recruits young Uighur women from majority Uighur areas of East Turkmenistan and transfers them to work in factories in urban areas of east China,'' Ms Kadeer said through an interpreter. Already some 400,000 women have been transferred.
Pressure China on civil rights: Uighur leader
---------- Post added at 01:01 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:00 AM ----------
Uighurs take heart from Middle East events