From Reuters via the New York Times:
China counted on Rebiya Kadeer, a Muslim businesswoman-turned-activist, fading into political irrelevance like most exiled Chinese dissidents when she left for the United States last year. But it may have miscalculated.
Kadeer, 58, an ethnic Uighur jailed for more than five years in China for providing state secrets to foreigners before her exile, won a Rafto Prize for human rights in Norway in 2004 and has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize this year.
The director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, Geir Lundestad, said in 2001 the committee should “sooner rather than later” speak out about the lack of democratic rights in China. He said China was the main exception to a global move to democracy. [Full Text]
See CDT’s archive of Kadeer-related news
