TOKYO (AP) — A high-profile Uighur activist accused China of repressing her ethnic group, as her exiles’ group met Monday in Tokyo for its biggest gathering in three years and the Chinese government slammed Japan for allowing the meeting.

World Uyghur Congress head Rebiya Kadeer said her group would continue its “peaceful struggle” for democracy and self-determination on behalf of Muslim Uighurs of far western China, and demanded that China respect the rights of ethnic minorities.

“We protest against the unbelievable suppression of human rights by China on the Uighur people,” Kadeer told the gathering of about 120 people in the Japanese capital. “Countries around the world that embrace freedom and democracy should cooperate and sternly pressure China.”

Japan allowed the meeting over the objections of China, which stressed its displeasure Monday over what it called Tokyo’s interference in domestic Chinese affairs.

“China is strongly discontented with Japan for ignoring China’s firm objections and obstinately allowing the World Uyghur Congress to host relevant meetings in Japan,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a regularly scheduled news conference in Beijing.

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said he had no comment on the privately sponsored meeting.

Monday’s gathering was the first of the congress since deadly clashes between ethnic Uighurs and members of the dominant Han Chinese group in China’s western region of Xinjiang in 2009 sparked international attention on the region. It has seen sporadic clashes since then.

Uighur activists blame the violence on economic marginalization and restrictions on Uighur culture and the Muslim religion that are breeding anger, especially among the younger generation.

The Chinese government has failed to win over Uighurs through policies to boost economic growth and incomes as it increases police presence and controls religious practices to deter displays of separatism.

Beijing has accused Kadeer of inciting the riots; she denies it. Kadeer was arrested in China in 1999 and sentenced to eight years in prison for mailing newspaper reports of anti-Chinese unrest to her husband overseas and for trying to give a list of political prisoners to U.S. congressional staff. She was released in 2005 and has since been living in the U.S.

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20120515p2g00m0in046000c.html

The World Uyghur Congress (WUC) has successfully held the Opening Ceremony of its 4th General Assembly at the Japanese Parliament in Tokyo in the morning of May 14. More than 120 Uyghur delegates from 20 countries around the world, Members of the Parliaments of Japan, Turkey and Italy, other foreign dignitaries, and Chinese, Tibetan and human rights activists attended.

During the opening ceremony, Uyghur democracy leader Rebiya Kadeer expressed her deep appreciation to the government of Japan for enabling the WUC to hold its General Assembly in Japan by issuing visas to delegates, and to the people and Parliament of Japan for their strong support of Uyghur people’s peaceful struggle for human rights and democracy in their homeland. Ms. Kadeer also highlighted the severe repression suffered by the Uyghur people under the harsh “strike-hard” government policies in East Turkestan, which have been particularly shocking since the July 5 Urumchi Massacre of 2009, including large-scale round-ups of young men who have not been heard from since they disappeared, and reports of horrific torture of the young people in unacknowledged detention.

She said, “Uyghurs are now no longer just struggling for their human rights but for their very existence as a unique and indigenous people.” In her speech, Ms. Kadeer requested that the Japanese Government raise the human rights violations suffered by Uyghurs and called on the Chinese government to stop repression of the basic rights of Uyghurs, Tibetans, Mongols, Han Chinese and all ethnic groups in China, and to embrace democratic reform in the interest of all people in China.

Her opening remarks were followed by the speeches of prominent members of the Japanese, Turkish, and Italian Parliaments, foreign dignitaries, and Chinese and Tibetan human rights activists, calling for the government of China to end the ongoing grave violations of the civil and political rights, as well as economic, social and cultural rights, of the Uyghur people.  The opening ceremony ended with a press conference attended by Japanese and international media interested in the plight of the Uyghur people and the visit of Ms. Rebiya Kadeer and Uyghur delegates to Tokyo. They asked a number of questions, including the purpose of WUC 4th General Assembly.

In the afternoon, an educational tour of historic landmarks near the Japanese Parliament took place. In the evening, a Uyghur Cultural Gala was held with the attendance of Uyghur delegates and Japanese politicians and activists. Uyghur musicians and dancers performed traditional Uyghur music and dance.

China has heavily criticised Japan’s decision to allow an organisation of Uighur exiles to meet in Tokyo, newspapers report on Tuesday.

Papers ranging from China Daily to the Global Times cover reaction from Beijing’s foreign ministry, as it lodged a strong protest over the World Uighur Congress meeting and subsequent visit to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine by the group’s leader, Rebiya Kadeer.

“We express our strong dissatisfaction over Japan’s permission for the separatist World Uighur Congress meeting and its engagement in anti-China activities in disregard of our firm opposition,” said China’s foreign ministry spokesmen Hong Lei.

Mr Hong also described Rebiya Kadeer’s visit to the Yasukuni Shrine as a symbol of collusion between “anti-China separatists” and right-wing activists in Japan, an act that will be “cast aside by Chinese daughters and sons in and out of China, including ethnic Uighur compatriots”.

Beijing Times and others also report on “multiple evidence” that proves the World Uighur Congress’ role behind the Urumqi riots in July 2009. About 200 people, mostly Han Chinese, were killed in the ethnic rioting.

The foreign ministry’s comments on Monday came just after President Hu Jintao met visiting Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, as reported by the People’s Daily.

However, Hong Kong’s Ming Pao Daily News and Sing Tao Daily report Mr Hu cancelled his bilateral meeting with Mr Noda.

Analysts believe that the Uighur meeting in Tokyo, as well as a fierce debate between Mr Noda and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao over the disputed East China Sea islands of Senkaku – also known as Diaoyu in China – are two major reasons behind the cancellation, reports say.

Meanwhile, Shanghai Morning Post says Tokyo is strongly hoping for Mr Hu to accept an invitation for a state visit to Japan.

In other diplomatic news, the Global Times’ English edition says the Philippines is seeking to ease tension over the Scarborough Shoal stand-off.

Beijing’s foreign ministry has also commented on the incident again, with the annual South China Sea fishing moratorium imposed by Beijing due to begin on Wednesday.

Spokesmen Hong Lei said that the fishing ban – which will include the Scarborough Shoal, known as Huangyan Island in China – has nothing to do with the ongoing spat, Shanghai Morning Post reports.

Beijing Times, however, reports that China will press for law enforcement action against any Filipino fishing boats fishing in the area.

Also on Tuesday, Beijing News and the Global Times report the Chinese capital has launched a 100-day crackdown on illegal immigrants.

A bilingual editorial in the Global Times urges the Chinese government to take swift actions against illegal immigrants.

However, the editorial also warns that “mishandling this problem may lead to diplomatic friction”.

“China is a friendly country, and should avoid misunderstanding from other countries when fighting against illegal immigrants,” it said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-18068309

The exiled head of the World Uyghur Congress says Uyghurs face a continuing threat to their existence because of repression by Chinese authorities in the northwestern Chinese province of Xinjiang.

Speaking at an annual conference in Tokyo, Rebiya Kadeer accused Beijing of “systematically” seeking to forcibly assimilate Uyghurs.

She called on the international community “to pay attention to the situation around human rights” rather than only pursue trade opportunities in China.

“The Chinese government systematically assimilates the Uyghur people while we’re struggling for freedom and human rights and now we are facing existential threats,” Kadeer said. “It’s like a life-or-death struggle at a time when China is becoming a growing regional power; at a time when the international community is more interested in trade with China than human rights.”

Uyghur activists and their supporters from some 20 countries have gathered in Tokyo for a five-day conference to press their case for independence.

READ: An RFE/RL interview with Uyghur leader Kadeer

Uyghurs say Chinese authorities are seeking to marginalize their existence by supporting the migration of millions of Han Chinese to their territory.

The resulting ethnic tensions have led to sporadic flashes of violence Xinjiang province in recent years.

Uyghurs, a Turkic-speaking nation of some 8.7 million, are an indigenous population of Xinjiang, which borders Central Asia, India, Russia, and Afghanistan.

Beijing says it has poured money into Xinjiang in a bid to raise living standards and boost the local economy.

Xinjiang authorities have also announced measures to try to spur employment. Reports say one official clause stipulates that all businesses and projects hire more ethnic minority workers. But Uyghurs say such rules are not always respected.

Kadeer said the indigenous population of China’s two other regions — Tibet and Inner Mongolia — face problems similar to what is faced by Uyghurs.

“You’re witnessing dozens of Tibetan people immolating themselves and you see the Mongolians suffering as well,” Kadeer said. “You see the Uyghurs facing extrajudicial killings, oppression, forceful deportations, economic exploitation, and destruction of their own culture.”

China considers the World Uyghur Congress a “splittist” organization and has condemned Japan’s issuing of a visa for Kadeer, who last visited the country in 2009.

Xinjiang, which in Mandarin means New Frontier, enjoyed a short-term independence twice: in the 1930s and in 1944-1949, under the name of Eastern Turkestan Republic.

http://www.rferl.org/content/exiled_uyghur_leader_kadeer_says_china_assimilating_uyghurs/24580040.html

TOKYO: A high-profile Uighur activist accused China of repressing her ethnic group, as her exiles’ group met on Monday in Tokyo for its biggest gathering in three years and the Chinese government slammed Japan for allowing the meeting. World Uyghur Congress head Rebiya Kadeer said her group would continue its “peaceful struggle” for democracy and selfdetermination , and demanded that China respect the rights of ethnic minorities.

“We protest against the unbelievable suppression of human rights by China on the Uighur people,” Kadeer told the gathering of about 120 people in Tokyo. “Countries around the world that embrace freedom and democracy should cooperate and sternly pressure China.”

Japan allowed the meeting over the objections of China, which stressed its displeasure on Monday over what it called Tokyo’s interference in domestic Chinese affairs. “China is discontented with Japan for ignoring China’s firm objections and allowing the World Uyghur Congress to host relevant meetings in Japan,” foreign ministry spokesman said.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/Uighur-meet-in-Tokyo-makes-Beijing-see-red/articleshow/13143733.cms

The World Uyghur Congress’s biennial meeting opens in Japan.

Ethnic Uyghurs are facing a struggle for survival in the face of growing repression, exiled Uyghur leader Rebiya Kadeer said Monday as she launched a biennial meeting of the World Uyghur Congress hosted by Japan against China’s objections.

“Before, we were fighting for our rights, we were protesting against China’s oppression,” Kadeer told reporters after the opening of the four-day WUC talks in Tokyo.

“But now we face a fight for our existence,” said Kadeer, the president of the WUC, a Germany-based group representing Uyghurs worldwide and holding its biennial meeting in Asia for the first time, after previous congresses in Munich and Washington.

Around 120 Uyghur delegates from diaspora communities around the world are participating in the talks, at which they will they will elect new delegates and discuss Uyghur rights issues.

Kadeer said the WUC would continue its “peaceful struggle” amid growing repression in the Xinjiang region, where many Uyghurs complain they are being marginalized in their own homeland by Chinese development policies that favor Han Chinese.

“The situation is now worse than it was in 2009,” when July 5 ethnic riots between Uyghurs and Han Chinese in Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi prompted a brutal crackdown on the region, she said.

Praising Japan, which hosted the conference despite China’s objections, as the “most democratic country in Asia,” she urged foreign governments to support the rights of Uyghurs and China’s other ethnic minorities, including Tibetans and Mongolians.

“Countries around the world that embrace freedom and democracy should cooperate and sternly pressure China,” she said.

Five members of Japan’s parliament spoke at the opening session.

Chinese objection

As the assembly began, Beijing demanded an apology from Japan for hosting the exile group, which it has accused of harming China’s territorial integrity.

“China is strongly dissatisfied with Japan’s allowing the World Uyghur Congress to hold the meeting in Japan despite China’s repeated appeals,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hong Lei said at a regular briefing, reiterating earlier objections.

“Xinjiang affairs are China’s internal affairs, in which outside interference is not tolerated,” he said.

After the opening ceremony, Kadeer and other Uyghur representatives paid a visit to the controversial Yasukuni shrine, a spot that has drawn outrage from China for honoring Japan’s World War II criminals.

Hong Lei said that Kadeer’s remarks in Japan “once again revealed her anti-China, splittist position” and that China “demands she abandon her plans to split the motherland.”

China has accused exile Uyghur activists including Kadeer of inciting terrorism in Xinjiang and has exerted diplomatic pressure to prevent other WUC meetings, the group has said.

In April, ahead of the WUC meeting, Japanese parliamentarians headed by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe set up a caucus supporting China’s minority Uyghurs, saying that Beijing should protect the human rights of the ethnic group.

On Thursday, the WUC will lead a demonstration march past the Chinese embassy in Tokyo, followed by three days of a leadership training seminar for Uyghur representatives.

Reported by Rachel Vandenbrink.

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/wuc-05142012155444.html

Thirty-six Uyghurs say their family members have been missing since the Urumqi riots in July 2009.

More families of Uyghurs missing in the aftermath of ethnic violence in China’s Xinjiang region in 2009 have come forward to highlight their cases in the absence of information from the Chinese authorities.

Since RFA’s Uyghur service reported last week about the plight of a Uyghur mother who said her missing son was last seen tortured and bundled to hospital three years ago, 36 families have come forward with their own stories of missing loved ones.

Exiled Uyghur leader Rebiya Kadeer said about 10,000 Uyghurs have been reported missing since the July 5, 2009 violence, when ethnic tensions between the minority group and Han Chinese in Xinjiang erupted into riots that left 200 people dead in the region’s capital Urumqi.

Most of them were believed taken into custody by authorities in large-scale sweep operations after the bloody incident.

Nineteen of the 36 families—from Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi, Silk Road city Kashgar, and Qaraqash county in Hotan prefecture—provided details, including photos, of their missing siblings or parents to RFA.

They appealed to the international community to help pressure the Chinese authorities to release information about the missing family members.

The 19—comprising three businessmen, 10 services industry workers or salesmen, and six unemployed—were believed detained by Chinese authorities just about a month after the violence, family members said.

The detentions were confirmed by fellow prison cellmates or the police, who did not provide any other details, they said.

Paraded in the streets

The youngest of the missing is 16-year-old Nabi Eli, who was last seen paraded in the streets of Urumqi on Aug. 15 with several other detainees surrounded by about 30 armed police personnel, according to his father, Elijan Rozi.

Astride a motorcycle, he tried to keep pace with a police van that took away his son, who was later forced into another police vehicle.

“They forced him into the vehicle by beating and kicking him,” Elijan Rozi said. “When I witnessed that scene and I was helpless, I just asked myself for the first time why was I born into this world.”

Later, he attempted to inquire about Nabi Eli’s fate from the police but was told that he was not on the list of detainees.

Another missing person, musician and songwriter Eysajan Memet, also disappeared just after the Urumqi violence, leaving a pregnant wife.

“Our son is two years old now and whenever he sees any man on television he often asks me, ‘Is that my father?,’” Eysajan Memet’s wife Toxtigul said.

Surveillance

Last week, the mother of a missing Uyghur man told RFA that she has been under constant surveillance by authorities bent on dissuading her from continuing the search for her son.

Patigul Eli said her son Imammemet Eli, 25, was taken by police on July 14, 2009 and that she last heard about him nine months later when fellow inmates said he was found severely tortured and sent to a hospital. Since then, there has been no news about him.

“I don’t know where my son is, whether he is alive or dead,” said Patigul, who has been knocking at the doors of various government departments and police stations to seek information about her missing son.

She said that in March of 2011, she confronted Wang Mingshan, the chief of the Urumqi Public Security Department, who told her that he had received 300 requests to track down missing Uyghurs following the July 2009 riots.

“Please understand us, there are more than 300 applications to look for the missing,” she quoted Wang as telling her. “We need some time to clarify this issue.”

Centers

The Chinese authorities had set up centers at two hotels in Urumqi—the Global Hotel and the Changcheng Hotel—for people to report missing people following the riots, according to Kurbangul, who is looking for her son Alim Helaji.

She said during her visits to the centers, she had never come across Han Chinese looking for missing parents or siblings.

The establishment of the centers shows that there could be a large number of people who were missing, the families said.

Three months after the Urumqi riots, U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said that it had documented the “enforced disappearances” of 43 Uyghur men and teenage boys detained by Chinese security forces in the wake of the protests, saying the number was “likely just the tip of the iceberg.”

The youngest reported missing following the riots, one of the worst episodes of ethnic violence in China in decades, were 12 and 14 years old, Human Rights Watch said.

Many of the families of the missing who contacted RFA were troubled that they could not get the whereabouts of their children or parents from the Chinese authorities.

They said some of the families of the missing did not highlight their plight, as they could not afford to travel to the various government offices to inquire about their whereabouts.

“There are more than 100 families in Karakash county [in Hotan prefecture] who lost their relatives but have remained silent because of financial difficulties,” said Elijan Said, one of whose family members is also missing.

Parting moments

Families looking for their missing loved ones have not given up hope and still remember their parting moments.

One of them, identified as Abdurehim Sidiq, a car mechanic, had been missing since July 5, when he went to buy shoes and never returned, according to his wife Ayse.

“That day, my husband went to Sanshixiangzi [one of the areas worst hit by the violence] to buy shoes. He had called me from the shoe store around 3:00 p.m., but when I called him back around 7:00 p.m. his phone was turned off and since then I have had no information from any officials or the public about him,” his wife Ayse told RFA.

Another missing man was identified as Turghun Obulqasim, a restaurant manager at the Urumqi-based Huaqiao Hotel and among seven of its employees arrested on July 9, 2009. All except him were released six months later.

“I was able to send him 500 yuan (about U.S. $80) on the first week [of his arrest],” said Pakistani businessman Salfurat, who manages the hotel.

“Since then, I could not get any information about him and I stopped looking for him because the police started to watch me with suspicion, wondering why I was involved in a Uyghur case.”

Salfurat said he had been paying Turghun Obulqasim’s wife Merhaba, who is unemployed, 700 yuan (U.S. $110) a month on “humanitarian grounds, as she desperately looks for her husband.”

According to Salfurat, Chinese police took into custody more than 70 employees from four restaurants, including from his hotel.

Two of the missing 19 people were Kazakhs, who like Uyghurs belong to a Turkic ethnic group. They were identified as Amantay Jumetay, 35, and Aytqazi Hasanbek, 26.

“We paid the price for race. My son was detained just because he looked more like a Uyghur than a Han Chinese,” one family member said.

Reported by Shohret Hoshur for RFA’s Uyghur service. Translated by Shohret Hoshur. Written in English by Parameswaran Ponnudurai.

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/uyghur-05142012130107.html

TOKYO – Exiled representatives of the Uighur, an ethnic group that lives mainly in Western China’s province of Xinjiang, are meeting in Japan for their fourth annual conference. The World Uighur Congress, based in Germany, opposes what it calls the Chinese occupation of their land, and the group’s gatherings routinely draw criticism from Beijing.

Rebiya Kadeer, leader of the World Uighur Congress, and also known as “the Mother of the Uighur Nation,” has been living in exile in the United States since her release from a Chinese prison in 2005.

She joined more than 100 representatives of the ethnic group from more than 20 countries, including the United States, Germany and Australia, to elect new leadership and discuss strategies to engage China over the issue of self-determination.

Kadeer said the Uighurs are facing a threat to their existence because of the Chinese government’s policy of systematic assimilation. She also accuses Chinese authorities of committing extra-judicial killings, economic exploitation, and destroying Uighur values.

The 63-year-old leader said the international community seems more interested in trade with China than in human rights. But she noted that Japan’s support in hosting the general assembly illustrated a growing awareness of the Uighur issue.

In Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei criticized Japan for allowing the conference to take place.

Lei said the World Uighur Conference is an outright anti-China, separatist and terrorist organization. He said China is very dissatisfied that Japan has allowed the Uighur conference to convene.

Several members of the Japanese political opposition participated in the opening session and expressed support for the Uighur cause.

Alim Seytoff, vice president and director of the Uighur-American Association, said the political fate of the Uighurs has remained unsettled since 1949, when the Chinese Communists occupied the region known as East Turkestan.

Communist leaders renamed it Xinjiang – or “new territory” – and made it into an autonomous region of China.

Seytoff said that after six decades, autonomy is not a reality. While some Uighurs demand independence or self-determination, others favor negotiating with Beijing.

“We hope there will be some political reforms within China, a recognition of the human rights of the Chinese people, the Uighurs, the Tibetans, that there will be a more moderate government that we can talk [with] about our issues and find a political, peaceful settlement,” said Seytoff

The Uighurs meeting in Tokyo this week also are training members to raise awareness of Uighur issues in their communities and electing new representatives of the ethnic group in exile.

http://www.voanews.com/tibetan-english/news/Uighur-Leader-Accuses-China-of-Systematic-Assimilation-151408935.html

Ethnic Uighurs from around the world have gathered in Japan, for a meeting to press their case for independence from China.

They want the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, a territory in Western China to become independent of China.

Ethnic tensions have led to sporadic flashes of violence in China’s Xinjiang region, which is home to nine million Uighurs.

The exiled head of the World Uyghur Congress, Rebiya Kadeer has opened proceedings at the fourth meeting of the body in Tokyo.

China considers the congress a “splittist” organisation and has condemned Japan’s issuing of a visa for Ms Kadeer, who last visited the country in 2009.

Ms Kadeer lives in exile in the United States.

She told those assembled that Beijing’s policy of forcible assimilation is unacceptable in a modern democracy.

“The Chinese government says it is assimilating and eventually eliminating the Uighur people and other indigenous people, meanwhile China is becoming a global power,” she said.

“We are peacefully struggling and hope the Chinese government will stop the repressing of Uighur people.

“Chinese-style communism, Chinese-style human rights and Chinese-style democratisation is not up to date,”

She said China must embrace democracy and peace and stop the forcible assimilation of Uighurs and other peoples.

Ms Kadeer was referring to ethnic Mongols and Tibetans who have their own independence struggles.

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/2012-05-14/ethnic-uighurs-pushing-for-independence-from-china/943402

TOKYO // The Uighur people face a fight for their very existence against Chinese repression, their exiled leader said yesterday as a conference in Japan threatened to drive a wedge between Tokyo and Beijing.

Ethnic Uighurs and their supporters from around the world gathered in the Japanese capital for a meeting aimed at pressing their claim for freedom from what Rebiya Kadeer called China’s intensifying crackdown.

“Before, we were fighting for our rights, we were protesting against China’s oppression,” Ms Kadeer said. “But now we face a fight for our existence.”

“The situation is now worse than it was in 2009,” when Uighurs demonstrated and clashed with the Chinese authorities, she said.

Many Uighurs complain that they are the victims of state-sanctioned persecution and marginalisation in their homeland in north-west China, aided by the migration of millions of Han Chinese into the territory.

The resulting ethnic tensions have led to sporadic flashes of violence in the Xinjiang region, which is home to nine million Uighurs.

Ms Kadeer told the conference that Beijing’s policy of “forcible assimilation” was unacceptable in a modern democracy.

“The Chinese government says it is assimilating and eventually eliminating the Uighur people and other indigenous people … meanwhile China is becoming a global power. We are peacefully struggling and hope the Chinese government will stop the repressing of Uighur people … and take political reforms to change their authoritarian rule.”

Beijing says it has poured money into Xinjiang in a bid to raise living standards and boost the local economy.

Xinjiang authorities have also announced measures to try to spur employment, with one clause stipulating all businesses and projects hire more ethnic minority workers, but Uighurs say the rules are not always respected.

China considers the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) a separatist organisation and has condemned Japan’s issuing of a visa for Ms Kadeer, who last visited the country in 2009.

The gathering came after the Japanese prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, met his Chinese counterpart, Wen Jiabao, and the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, in a summit focusing on economic ties and the region’s response to North Korea.

Mr Noda and Mr Wen met on Sunday for one-on-one talks, but reports from Beijing yesterday suggested the Chinese had sought to avoid a second high-level meeting as a way of expressing displeasure over Japan allowing the conference to go ahead.

Lawmakers from Japan’s centre-right opposition Liberal Democratic Party were at yesterday’s meeting of the WUC, alongside an Italian and a Turkish politician, as well as delegates of the India-based Tibetan government in exile and US rights activists.

Later in the day Uighur representatives were expected to visit the controversial Yasukuni Shrine.

The shrine is a hot spot in Japan’s relations with its Asian neighbours because it is dedicated to 2.5 million Japanese killed in wars – including top Second World War criminals – and is often seen as a symbol of the country’s wartime aggression.

The visit highlights the strange bedfellows that issues such as Uighur separatism can often create: Japanese nationalists and wartime apologists are apt to make common cause with those who are a thorn in Beijing’s side.

“As Uighurs always visit places that are dedicated to people who died for their country, we organised a tour to the shrine,” said Tomoyuki Hirose, a member of the Japan Uighur Association.

This year’s conference is the fourth after previous editions were held in Munich and in Washington.

Ms Kadeer said participants from more than 20 countries were at the meeting, which she said was being held in “the most democratic country in Asia”.

“We had hoped 200 or 300 Uighurs could have gathered here, but some of our delegates were not allowed to get visas because of Chinese pressure on their countries of residence,” Ms Kadeer said.

http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/asia-pacific/ethnic-uighurs-face-fight-for-existence-against-china-says-leader