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WASHINGTON: US lawmakers on Friday came to the defence of Rebiya Kadeer, the leader of exiles from China's Uighur minority, after Beijing accused the US-based activist of fomenting the country's deadliest ethnic violence in decades.
Two lawmakers, one from each US political party, appeared alongside Kadeer at the US Capitol and announced they were introducing a resolution in Congress to condemn China for its "violent repression" of "peaceful Uighur protests".
Congressman Bill Delahunt, a member of President Barack Obama's Democratic Party, said Beijing's allegations against Kadeer have been "offensive and repugnant".
"We are calling on the Chinese government to desist in slandering this woman who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize on three separate occasions," Delahunt told the news conference.
"I think what it demonstrates is the desperation of this particular regime in terms of dealing with what clearly is becoming a public relations disaster," he said.
Chinese authorities have accused Kadeer of orchestrating the ethnic bloodshed in Xinjiang, a vast western province native to the Uighurs but which a growing number of settlers from China's Han majority have made home.
Beijing has said Kadeer, head of the World Uighur Congress and Uighur American Association, is also supported by "terrorists" among the Uighurs, who are predominantly Muslim.
Kadeer, who spent six years in a Chinese prison before she was released in 2005 under US pressure, adamantly denied the charges.
"I'm against all violence. I have not done this and I will not do such a thing," she said next to the congressmen.
Kadeer has made Washington a base for activism. She met former president George W. Bush at the White House and her groups are backed by the National Endowment for Democracy, which is privately run but funded by Congress.
Asked if she was engaged in improper activities, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said on Thursday: "I'll just say very simply that we don't have any information to substantiate these kinds of claims by the Chinese government."
Kadeer, a 62-year-old mother of 11, was once a department store magnate said to be the richest woman in China and hailed by Beijing as a model for the Uighur minority.
But she was arrested in 1999 on her way to meet a delegation of US congressional researchers after running afoul of authorities for her complaints about the treatment of the Uighurs.
Chinese state media says that 184 people died, most of them Han, when Uighurs "rioted" on Sunday.
But Kadeer alleged that the death toll could be in the thousands, saying she has heard accounts of "mob killings" across the vast region which Uighurs call East Turkestan.
She said that security forces used deadly force on peaceful protests on Sunday, triggering the backlash in which thousands of Han Chinese took to the streets with meat cleavers and other makeshift weapons vowing vengeance.
The resolution introduced to the US Congress expresses "sadness at the loss of both Han Chinese and Uighur life during the recent upheavals".
"Certainly, we condemn anyone who is committing violence against someone else on the basis of their race, religion of anything else," said Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican.
"But remember, this friction is caused by an intentional policy of Beijing to try to destroy the Uighur homeland," he said. "In the long run, this is a policy of the Beijing government to commit genocide against the Uighur people."
Many Han Chinese bristle at such accusations, saying that Beijing has brought "modernisation" to Xinjiang and the neighbouring restive region of Tibet.
- AFP/so
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