156 killed, 1,080 injured in Xinjiang riots

• Source: Global Times
• [09:51 July 07 2009]
• Comments

Separatist

Rebiya Kadeer

Rebiya Kadeer was born in 1951, in the Altay Prefecture of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, and she used to be a prominent Uygur businesswoman who benefited from the reform and opening-up policy.

Kadeer served as the vice president of the Xinjiang Federation of Industry and Commerce and vice director of the Association of Women Entrepreneurs. She was nominated as a member of the 8th Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

Kadeer’s successes as a businesswoman faded as she was accused of connections with a slew of economic frauds. The trading company she registered in Urumqi, was found to have dodged taxes of more than 8 million yuan ($1.2 million) from 1994 to 2004, as well as failing to pay a fine for late payment of more than 20 million yuan ($2.9 million) and repaying more than 28 million yuan ($4.1 million)in debt.

In 1999, she was detained on charges of jeopardizing national security and was sentenced to eight years in prison.

On March 17, 2005, Kadeer was released on early medical parole to the United States. She affirmed to the Chinese government before departing for the US that she would never participate in any activities to harm China’s national security.

But she ate her words soon afterward and is accused of masterminding a series of separatist activities and demanding her children sell off their properties in order to flee China.