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BEIJING: China on Tuesday sentenced the son of exiled
Uighur nationalist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Rebiya Kadeer to
nine years in prison for secessionist activities, court officials
and state press said.
Ablikim Abdiriyim, Xinhua news
agency reported, was sentenced by an intermediate court in Urumqi,
the capital of westernmost Xinjiang region.
“Ablikim Abdiriyim was found to
have spread secessionist articles over the Internet, instigated the
public against the government and written articles distorting
China’s human rights and ethnic policies,” Xinhua said, citing
court documents.
“He is the son of Rebiya,” a
woman official at the Urumqi intermediate court confirmed to Agence
France-Presse by phone, refusing further comment.
Rebiya Kadeer is the symbol of
struggle for greater rights for the 10 million Uighurs, the largest
and overwhelmingly Muslim ethnic group in the Xinjiang region.
She was imprisoned for six years
after being accused by Beijing of leaking “state secrets” to a
US congressional delegation visiting the region in the 1990s.
She was released in March 2005
and allowed to go into exile in the United States, from where she
continues to speak up for her people. China has continued to express
anger over her comments while in exile.
Kadeer, a millionaire
businesswoman before her arrest, was among nominees for the Nobel
Peace Prize last year won by Bangladesh economist Muhammad Yunus.
According to the London-based
Amnesty International, two other sons of Kadeer were fined or jailed
for alleged tax evasion in October last year.
Kahar Abdureyim and Alim
Abdureyim were sentenced to pay fines totaling millions of US
dollars, and Alim was also sentenced to seven years in jail.
The two were not allowed to
defend themselves in the closed-door trial in Urumqi, their sister
Akida Abdureyim told AFP late last year, quoting relatives who spoke
to her from the region.
In addition, another daughter of
Kadeer, Rouxian Gul Kadeer, had been under house arrest, but was
released late last year, according to Amnesty.
China has stepped up pressure on
Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang since it joined the war on
terrorists.
 --AFP
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