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SIDDIQUI: DRAGON SLAYER STILL FEARLESS

Originally published by: Toronto Star / On Sun Dec 06 2009

By Haroon Siddiqui

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Rebiya Kadeer, exiled leader of Uighurs in west of China, took her call for peaceful change to Tokyo. (Oct. 20, 2009)

She is the equivalent of the Dalai Lama – a leader in exile, battling Beijing over the persecution of her people in China.

Her story is even more compelling.

Whereas the Tibetan leader was anointed a child god and, at age 24, whisked out of China in 1959 on a donkey over the Himalayas to exile in India where he remains, she was a dirt-poor housewife who walked out on her abusive husband, became a multi-millionaire entrepreneur and a human rights activist, married a fellow-dissident and was persecuted and jailed.

It was only in 2005 that the mother of 11 – indeed “the Mother of all Uighurs” – was released under American pressure, and now wages her non-violent campaign from exile in Washington, D.C.She was nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize and would, in fact, have been a better choice than Barack Obama.Rebiya Kadeer was in Toronto recently for a Uighurs women’s conference, where I spoke to her.

She was hoping that Stephen Harper, whom she met in Ottawa in 2007, would raise the plight of her people during his visit to China.

He said Thursday in Beijing that he raised Canada’s “general concerns” and also “specific cases” but offered no details.

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/china/article/734993–siddiqui-dragon-slayer-still-fearless