From Newsweek:
Just two weeks after Tibetan monks first took to the streets in protest against Chinese rule, unrest broke out among Muslim Uighurs in China’s remote Xinjiang region. Details about the demonstrations remain murky, but Rebiya Kadeer, president of the World Uighur Congress, believes that at least 400 people are being held in detention. Kadeer, 61, says the outburst was triggered by a combination of factors, including the death in detention of local businessman and philanthropist Mutallip Hajim; a Chinese-imposed 10 p.m. curfew in the southern Silk Road regions of Kashgar and Khotan on March 11, one day after the monks’ protests began in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, and subsequent attempts to prevent Muslim Uighur women wearing head scarves that led to protests by at least 1,000 women in Khotan on March 23 and 24.
Kadeer, whose umbrella organization represents more than 1 million Uighurs in 35 countries, was detained by Beijing in 1999 on charges of leaking state secrets and freed in 2005 ahead of a visit to China by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Now based in Washington, Kadeer spoke to NEWSWEEK’s Mary Hennock through an interpreter. Excerpts:
