Uyghur
ئۇيغۇرچە‎ / ئۇيغۇر تىلى‎
Pronunciation	[ʔʊjˈʁʊrtʃɛ]
Spoken in	China, Kazakhstan; also spoken in Afghanistan, Albania, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, and Uzbekistan[1]
Region	Xinjiang
Native speakers	8–11 million[1][2]  (2000–2005)
Language family	Turkic Uyghuric Uyghur
Writing system	Arabic-based script, in the past other Uyghur alphabets
Official status
Official language in	China (Xinjiang)
Regulated by	Working Committee of Ethnic Language and Writing of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region
Language codes
ISO 639-1	ug
ISO 639-2	uig
ISO 639-3	uig
Geographical extent of Uyghur in China
This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Uyghur language
Uyghur language
Uyghur dialects
Uyghur phonology
Uyghur grammar
Uyghur alphabet
Sogdian · Old Uyghur · Old Turkic
Arabic · Latin · Yengi Yeziⱪ · Cyrillic
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Uyghur (ئۇيغۇرچە‎, Uyghurche),^[3][4] formerly known as Eastern Turkish, is a Turkic language with 8 to 11 million speakers, spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China. Significant communities of Uyghur-speakers are located in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and various other countries have Uyghur-speaking expatriate communities. Uyghur is an official language of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and is widely used in both social and official spheres, as well as in print, radio, and television, and is used as a lingua franca by other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang^{[citation needed]}.

Uyghur belongs to the Uyghuric branch of the Turkic language family, which also includes languages such as Salar and the more distantly related Uzbek. Like many other Turkic languages, Uyghur displays vowel harmony and agglutination, lacks noun classes or grammatical gender, and is a left-branching language with subject–object–verb word order. More distinctly Uyghur processes include, especially in northern dialects, vowel reduction and umlauting. In addition to influence of other Turkic languages, Uyghur has historically been influenced strongly by Persian and Arabic, and more recently by Mandarin Chinese and Russian.

Uyghur began being written in the fifth century. The Arabic-derived writing system is the most common and the only standard in China, although other writing systems are used for auxiliary and historical purposes. Unlike most Arabic-derived scripts, the Uyghur Arabic alphabet has mandatory marking of all vowels. Two Latin and one Cyrillic alphabet are also used, though to a much lesser extent. The Arabic and Latin alphabets have 32 characters, while the Cyrillic alphabet adds two characters ⟨Я⟩ and ⟨Ю⟩ to represent the sequences /ja/ and /ju/.

History[link]

The Old Turkic language is an ancient Turkic language used from the 7th to 13th centuries in Mongolia and the Xinjiang region, and is especially found among the Orkhon inscriptions and Turpan texts. It is the direct ancestor of the Uyghur Turkic languages, including Uyghur and the Uzbek language. By contrast, the Western Yugur language, although in geographic proximity, is more closely related to the Siberian Turkic languages in Siberia.^[5]

Probably around 1077,^[6] a scholar of the Turkic languages, Mahmud al-Kashgari from Kashgar in modern-day Xinjiang, published a Turkic language dictionary and description of the geographic distribution of many Turkic languages, Divān-ul Lughat-ul Turk (English: Compendium of the Turkic Dialects; Uyghur: تۈركى تىللار دىۋانى‎ Türki Tillar Divani). The book, described by scholars as an "extraordinary work,"^[7][8] documents the rich literary tradition of Turkic languages; it contains folk tales (including descriptions of the functions of shamans^[8]) and didactic poetry (propounding "moral standards and good behaviour"), besides poems and poetry cycles on topics such as hunting and love,^[9] and numerous other language materials.^[10]

Old Turkic, through the influence of Perso-Arabic after the 13th century, developed into the Chagatai language, a literary language used all across Central Asia until the early 20th century. After Chaghatai fell into extinction, the standard versions of Uyghur and Uzbek were developed from dialects in the Chagatai-speaking region, showing abundant Chaghatai influence. Uyghur language today shows considerable Persian influence as a result from Chagatai, including numerous Persian loanwords.^[11]

The historical term "Uyghur" was appropriated for the language formerly known as Eastern Turki by government officials in the Soviet Union in 1922 and in Xinjiang in 1934.^[12][13] Sergey Malov was behind the idea of renaming Turki to Uyghurs.^[14]

Classification[link]

The Uyghur language belongs to the Uyghur Turkic (or Uyghuric) branch of the Turkic language family. It is closely related to Western Yugur, Salar, Aini, Lop, Ili Turki, the extinct languages Old Turkic and Chagatay (the East Uyghuric languages), and more distantly to Uzbek (which is West Uyghuric).

Early linguistic scholarly studies of Uyghur include Julius Klaproth's 1812 Dissertation on language and script of the Uighurs (Abhandlung über die Sprache und Schrift der Uiguren) which was disputed by Isaak Jakob Schmidt. In this period, Klaproth correctly asserted that Uyghur was a Turkic language, while Schmidt believed that Uyghur should be classified with Tangut languages.^[15]

Dialects[link]

It is widely accepted that Uyghur has three main dialects, all based on their geographical distribution. Each of these main dialects have a number of sub-dialects which all are mutually intelligible to some extent.

• Central: Spoken in an area stretching from Kumul towards south to Yarkand
• Southern: Spoken in an area stretching from Guma towards east to Charqaliq
• Eastern: Spoken in an area stretching from Charqaliq towards north to Chongköl

The Central dialects are spoken by 90% of the Uyghur-speaking population, while the two other branches of dialects only are spoken by a relatively small minority.^[16]

Vowel reduction is common in the northern parts of where Uyghur is spoken, but not in the south.^[17]

Status[link]

Uyghur is spoken by about 8-11 million people in total.^[1][2][18] In addition to being spoken primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China, mainly by the Uyghur people, Uyghur is also spoken by some 300,000 people in Kazakhstan as of 1993, some 90,000 in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan as of 1998, 3,000 in Afghanistan and 1,000 in Mongolia, both as of 1982.^[2] Smaller communities also exist in Albania, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Indonesia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Turkey, United Kingdom and the United States.^[1]

The Uyghurs are one of the 56 recognized ethnic groups in China, and Uyghur is an official language of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, along with Standard Chinese. As a result, Uyghur can be heard in most social domains in Xinjiang, and also in schools, government and courts.^[2] Of the other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, those populous enough to have their own autonomous prefectures, such as the Kazakhs and the Kyrgyz, have access to schools and government services in their native language. Smaller minorities, however, will not have a choice and must attend Uyghur language school.^[19] These include the Xibe, Tajiks of China, Daurs, and Russians.^[20]

About 80 newspapers and magazines are available in Uyghur; five TV channels and ten publishers serve as the Uyghur media. Outside of China, Radio Free Asia and TRT provide news in Uyghur.

Phonology[link]

Vowels[link]

The vowels of the Uyghur language are, in their alphabetical order (in Uyghur Latin Script ' Uyghur Latin Yëziqi '), ⟨a⟩, ⟨e⟩, ⟨ë ⟩, ⟨i⟩, ⟨o⟩, ⟨ö⟩, ⟨u⟩, ⟨ü⟩. There are no diphthongs in Uyghur and when two vowels come together, which occurs in some loanwords, each vowel retains its individual sound. And disregarding vowel length distinction in current Uyghur orthographies.
The Uyghur vowel system is characterised by the oppositions front vs. back, high vs. low and unrounded vs. rounded.

Uyghur vowels are by default short, but some phonologists^[who?] have argued that long vowels also exist because of historical vowel assimilation (above) and through loanwords. Underlyingly long vowels would resist vowel reduction and devoicing, introduce non-final stress, and be analyzed as |Vj| or |Vr| before a few suffixes. However, the conditions in which they are actually pronounced as distinct from their short counterparts have not been fully researched.^[21]

Official Uyghur orthographies do not mark vowel length, and also do not distinguish between /ɪ/ (e.g., بىلىم‎ /bɪlɪm/ 'knowledge') and back /ɯ/ (e.g., تىلىم‎ /tɯlɯm/ 'my language'); these two sounds are in complementary distribution, but phonological analyses claim that they play a role in vowel harmony and are separate phonemes.^[22] /e/ only occurs in words of non-Turkic origin and as the result of vowel raising.^[23]

Uyghur has systematic vowel reduction (or vowel raising) as well as vowel harmony. Words usually agree in vowel backness, but compounds, loans, and some other exceptions often break vowel harmony. Suffixes surface with the rightmost [back] value in the stem, and /e, ɪ/ are transparent (as they don't contrast for backness). Uyghur also has rounding harmony.^[24]

Consonants[link]

Uyghur voiceless stops are aspirated word-initially and intervocalically.^[25] The pairs /p, b/, /t, d/, /k, ɡ/, and /q, ʁ/ alternate, with the voiced member devoicing in syllable-final position, except in word-initial syllables. This devoicing process is usually reflected in the official orthography, but an exception has been recently made for certain Perso-Arabic loans.^[26] Voiceless phonemes do not become voiced in standard Uyghur.^[27]

Suffixes display a slightly different type of consonant alternation. The phonemes /ɡ/ and /ʁ/ anywhere in a suffix alternate as governed by vowel harmony, where /ɡ/ occurs with front vowels and /ʁ/ with back ones. Devoicing of a suffix-initial consonant can occur only in the cases of /d/ → [t], /ɡ/ → [k], and /ʁ/ → [q], when the preceding consonant is voiceless. Lastly, the rule that /g/ must occur with front vowels and /ʁ/ with back vowels can be broken when either [k] or [q] in suffix-initial position becomes assimilated by the other due to the preceding consonant being such.^[28]

Loan phonemes have influenced Uyghur to various degrees. /d͡ʒ/ and /x/ were borrowed from Arabic and have been nativized, while /ʒ/ from Persian less so. /f/ only exists in very recent Russian and Chinese loans, since Perso-Arabic (and older Russian and Chinese) /f/ became Uyghur /p/. Perso-Arabic loans have also made the contrast between /k, ɡ/ and /q, ʁ/ phonemic, as they occur as allophones in native words, the former set near front vowels and the latter near a back vowels. Some speakers of Uyghur distinguish /v/ from /w/ in Russian loans, but this is not represented in most orthographies. Other phonemes occur natively only in limited contexts, i.e. /h/ only in few interjections, /d/, /ɡ/, and /ʁ/ rarely initially, and /z/ only morpheme-final. Therefore, the pairs */t͡ʃ, d͡ʒ/, */ʃ, ʒ/, and */s, z/ do not alternate.^[29][30]

Phonotactics[link]

The primary syllable structure of Uyghur is CV(C)(C).^[1] Uyghur syllable structure is usually CV or CVC, but CVCC can also occur in some words. When syllable-coda clusters occur, CC tends to become CVC in some speakers especially if the first consonant is not a sonorant. In Uyghur, any consonant phoneme can occur as the syllable onset or coda, except for /ʔ/ which only occurs in the onset and /ŋ/, which never occurs word-initially. In general, Uyghur phonology tends to simplify phonemic consonant clusters by means of elision and epenthesis.^[31]

Orthography[link]

A signboard in front of the Military Museum of Xinjiang written in Uyghur (using Ereb Yëziqi) and Standard Chinese

A sign in Ghulja, Xinjiang, written in Uyghur (using Ereb Yëziqi) and Chinese (both Hanzi and Pinyin)

Internet café in Khotan oasis city in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. Address written in Uygur Language/Arabic script

Since the beginning of the literary tradition of Uyghur in the 5th century, it has been written in numerous different writing systems and continues to be. Unlike many other modern Turkic languages, Uyghur is primarily written using an Arabic alphabet, although a Cyrillic alphabet and two Latin alphabets also are in use to a much lesser extent. Unusually for an alphabet based on the Persian, full transcription of vowels is indicated. (Among the Arabic family of alphabets, only Kashmiri and Kurdish similarly indicate all vowels.)

The four alphabets in use today can be seen below.

• Uyghur Ereb Yëziqi or UEY
• Uyghur Latin Yëziqi or ULY
• Uyghur Siril Yëziqi or USY
• Uyghur Pinyin Yëziqi or UPNY

In the table below the alphabets are shown side-by-side for comparison, together with a phonetic transcription in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

Grammar[link]

Uyghur is an agglutinative language with a subject–object–verb word order. Nouns are inflected for number and case, but not gender and definiteness like in many other languages. There are two numbers: singular and plural; and six different cases: nominative, accusative, dative, locative, ablative and genitive.^[32][33] Verbs are conjugated for tense: present and past; voice: causative and passive; aspect: continuous; and mood: e.g. ability. Verbs may be negated as well.^[32]

Lexicon[link]

The core lexicon of the Uyghur language is of Turkic stock, but due to different kinds of language contact through the history of the language, it has adopted many loanwords. Kazakh, Uzbek and Chagatai are all Turkic languages which have had a strong influence on Uyghur. Many words of Arabic origin have come into the language through Persian and Tajik, which again have come through Uzbek, and to a greater extent, Chagatai. Many words of Arabic origin have also entered the language directly through Islamic literature after the introduction of the Islamic religion around the 10th century.

Chinese in Xinjiang and Russian elsewhere had the greatest influence on Uyghur. Loanwords from these languages are all quite recent, although older borrowings exist as well, such as borrowings from Dungan, a Mandarin language spoken by the Dungan people of Central Asia. A number of loanwords of German origin have also reached Uyghur through Russian.^[34]

Below are some examples of loanwords which have entered the Uyghur language.

See also[link]

• Languages of China

References[link]

Notes[link]

General[link]

• Duval, Jean Rahman; Janbaz, Waris Abdukerim (2006), An Introduction to Latin-Script Uyghur, Salt Lake City: University of Utah, http://www.uyghurdictionary.org/excerpts/An%20Introduction%20to%20LSU.pdf 
• Dwyer, Arienne (2001), "Uyghur", in Garry, Jane; Rubino, Carl, Facts About the World's Languages, H. W. Wilson, pp. 786–790, ISBN 978-0-8242-0970-4 
• Engesæth, Tarjei; Yakup, Mahire; Dwyer, Arienne (2009), Greetings from the Teklimakan: A Handbook of Modern Uyghur, Volume 1, Lawrence: University of Kansas Scholarworks, ISBN 978-1-936153-03-9, http://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/dspace/bitstream/1808/5624/3/EngYakDwy2009_Uyg1full_10.pdf 
• Hahn, Reinhard F. (1991), Spoken Uyghur, London and Seattle: University of Washington Press, ISBN 978-0-295-98651-7 
• Hahn, Reinhard F. (1998), "Uyghur", in Johanson, Lars; Csató, Éva Ágnes, The Turkic Languages, Routledge, pp. 379–396, ISBN 978-0-415-08200-6 
• Johanson, Lars, "Uyghur", in Johanson, Lars; Csató, Éva Ágnes, History of Turkic, Routledge, pp. 81–125, ISBN 978-0-415-08200-6 
• Vaux, Bert (2001), Disharmony and Derived Transparency in Uyghur Vowel Harmony, Cambridge: Harvard University, http://www.uwm.edu/~vaux/uyghur.pdf 
• Tömür, Hamüt (2003), Modern Uyghur Grammar (Morphology), trans. Anne Lee, Istanbul: Yıldız, ISBN 975-7981-20-6 
• Yakup, Abdurishid (2005), The Turfan Dialect of Uyghur, Turcologica, 63, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, ISBN 3-447-05233-3 

External links[link]

Uyghur language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Uyghur Arabic script

Look up Uyghur in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Dictionaries[link]

• Uyghur–Chinese Dictionary
• Online Uyghur-English Multiscript Dictionary
• Online Uyghur–English Dictionary (Arabic Alphabet)
• Free Uighur Dictionary

Radio[link]

• Radio Free Asia
• TRT: Uyghur
• CRI: Uyghur

Fonts[link]

• Arabic Uyghur in different fonts
• Unicode based TrueType/OpenType fonts of the Uyghur Computer Science Association

Rebiya Kadeer
Born	(1948-07-15) 15 July 1948 (age 63)
Residence	Virginia,[1] United States
Nationality	China
Ethnicity	Uyghur
Occupation	Businesswoman, political activist
Known for	President of the World Uyghur Congress
Religion	Islam

Rebiya Kadeer (Uyghur: رابىيه قادىر‎; Chinese: 热比娅·卡德尔; born 15 July 1948) is a Uyghur human rights activist with origins in Xinjiang, China. Kadeer is the symbolic leader of Uighur self-determination movement in her capacity as President of the World Uyghur Congress, a group that advocates for greater autonomy for Uyghurs in China and fights against what they consider to be oppressive policies of the Chinese government. She lives in the United States.

Early life and career[link]

Rebiya Kadeer is a prominent Uyghur businesswoman and political activist from the northwest region of Xinjiang, an autonomus region of the People's Republic of China (PRC). She was born into poverty in the city of Altay, then she married in 1965 and moved to the city of Aksu.

First Marriage

Kadeer entered her first marriage as a dedicated housewife, but when her household struggled financially, she began independently making and selling clothes and other small goods as a means of support.

During the Chinese cultural revolution she was suppressed for her efforts, as the Chinese government attempted to break up her family. She claims that the Chinese government told her ex-husband-to divorce her. She recounts "They put pressure on him to divorce me because they accused me of secretly doing business. They said that it was wrong for me to do secret business."^[2]

Entrepreneurship

Following her divorce, Kadeer opened a laundry service in 1976. She later remarried in 1981 to Sidik Rouzi, then an associate professor, and moved to Ürümqi. In Ürümqi, Kadeer leased a market in the local business district, and converted it into a department store that specialized in Uyghur ethnic costumes. In 1985, Kadeer converted the building into a 14,000 square meter commercial building.^[3]

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kadeer engaged in cross-border trade, accumulating assets which at their peak were worth more than 200 million yuan.^[4] She became one of the five richest people in China, and her success earned her the nickname "the millionairess". The trading company she operated, had businesses in China, Russia and Kazakhstan.^[5] Kadeer founded the The Akida Industry and Trade Co, which owns a number of properties in Xinjiang province. These include The Akida Trade Center, the adjacent Kadeer Trade Center and the Tuanjie, or Unity, theatre in Ürümqi.^[6]

Kadeer was an active philanthropist within the community, most notably through her foundation, 1,000 Mothers Movement, a charity intended to help Uyghur women start their own local businesses, as well as support underprivileged and orphaned Uighur children.^[4]

Political career

It is worth noting that Kadeer was not always at odds with the government, and was once welcomed as an appointed delegate to the eighth session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference,^[4] the National People's Congress and was a representative to the UN Fourth World Conference for Women in Beijing in 1995.^[7] Kadeer has also served as vice chairwoman of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region Federation of Industry and Commerce, and vice chairwoman of the Xinjiang Association of Women Entrepreneurs.

She has been the president of the World Uyghur Congress since November 2006.^[8] Kadeer has been active in defending the rights of the largely Muslim Uyghur minority, who have been subject to oppression at the hands of the Chinese government.^[9]

Arrest

On 10 March 2000 Kadeer was convicted of "endangering state security" by the Ürümqi Intermediate People's Court, which involved her sending news articles about the Xinjiang Uighurs to her husband in the United States.

She was released and left China in March 2005, and is currently living in political exile in the United States.

Personal Life

She is the mother of eleven children.^[10]

Imprisonment[link]

After witnessing the Ghulja Incident in 1997, Kadeer says she failed in her repeated attempts to persuade Beijing that change was needed. Feeling that she had no choice, she openly criticised the government in a speech before parliament, and was promptly removed from the National People's Consultative Conference; authorities revoked her passport.^[10] In 1999 she sent newspaper clippings to her exiled husband, Sidik Rouzi, who was living in the United States and who is active in protesting against Chinese policies towards the Uyghur people. Kadeer was detained in August 1999 while on her way to meet a US Congressional Research Service delegation investigating the situation in Xinjiang at the time,^[10] and was alleged to be in possession of a list of 10 people "suspected of having a connection with national separatist activities". She was detained by PRC authorities on charges of "leaking state secrets", and was convicted on 10 March 2000 in the Ürümqi Intermediate People's Court, of "endangering state security",^[4][11] after sending her husband newspaper clippings on the treatment of the Uyghur community.^[12]

Whilst in prison, Kadeer spent two years in solitary confinement, but was not tortured. She speculates that this was because guards were aware of her international reputation.^[10] In 2004, her sentence was reduced by a year based on citations of good behaviour where she was being held.

Release and exile[link]

In 2004 she won the Rafto Prize for human rights.^[13] On 14 March 2005, Kadeer was released early, nominally on medical grounds, into United States' custody in advance of a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the region. The U.S., which had pressured for her release, agreed to drop a resolution against China in the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch moderated their criticism somewhat as a consequence.^[14] On 17 March, Kadeer flew to the U.S. and joined her family in Washington, D.C. In an interview with Phoenix Television before her departure to the US, she stated that she would remain a citizen of the People's Republic of China, and as a person born in the new China, she would sacrifice her own life for the integrity of China.^[15]

In April 2007, one of her sons, Ablikim, was sentenced to 9 years in prison and 3 years deprivation of political rights, reportedly after confessing to charges of "instigating and engaging in secessionist activities." In November 2006 Alim, another of her sons, was sentenced to 7 years in prison and fined $62,500. Qahar Abdurehim, yet another of her sons, was fined $12,500 for tax evasion but not jailed. In June 2006, Alim, Ablikim, and Qahar were officially charged with state security and economic crimes shortly following Kadeer' election as president of the Uighur American Association.^[16]

The Chinese government characterizes Kadeer as "an ironclad separatist colluding with terrorists and Islamic extremists."^[1] But Kadeer stated her belief that all Uyghur organizations fight peacefully.^[17] On 5 June 2007, at a conference on democracy and security held in Prague, Kadeer met privately with President George W. Bush, who praised people like her for being "far more valuable than the weapons of their army or oil under the ground."^[18] On 17 September 2007, the United States House of Representatives passed by a voice vote House Resolution 497,^[19] demanding that the Chinese Government release the imprisoned children of Rebiya Kadeer and Canadian citizen Huseyin Celil, and change its suppressive policy towards the Uyghur people.^[20]

In 2010 Kadeer was banned from entering Taiwan for three years. Kadeer had been invited by a Taiwanese arts organization to attend screenings of The 10 Conditions of Love. Taiwan's Kuomintang (KMT) government claimed its rejection of Kadeer was "based on security needs." Ostensibly, the KMT was pressured by the Communist Party in Beijing. The party has long tried to delegitimize Kadeer's campaign to expose the severe human rights violations that China commits against its ethnic Uyghurs. Chinese authorities have called Kadeer a "terrorist"--a term they frequently use to describe human rights advocates.^[21]

July 2009 riots[link]

While the protests that preceded the July 2009 riots were ostensibly a response to the death of two Uighur workers in Guangdong, the Chinese government catapulted Kadeer into the limelight when it claimed the WUC, which she heads, had planned the riots.^[22] That said, Taiwan denied a visa to Kadeer in September 2009, alleging she had links to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, classed as a terrorist organization by the United Nations and USA.^[23] Kadeer has denied that the riots were organised.^[24]

On 3 August, Xinhua reported that two of Rebiya Kadeer's children had written letters blaming her for orchestrating the riots. According to Xinhua, they pleaded: "We want a stable and safe life … Please think about the happiness of us and your grandchildren. Don't destroy our happy life here. Don't follow the provocation from some people in other countries."^[25] Germany-based spokesman for the WUC rejected the letters as fakes. A Human Rights Watch researcher remarked their style was "suspiciously close" to the way the Chinese authorities had described rioting in Xinjiang and the aftermath. He added that: "...it's highly irregular for [her children] to be placed on the platform of a government mouthpiece ... for wide dispersion."^[26] CCTV broadcast a video of interviews with the family members of Kadeer on 4 August.^[27]

Xinhua announced in early September 2009 that three properties owned by Kadeer's companies, including the Akida Trade Center, where more than 30 members of Kadeer's family were reportedly living, would be torn down due to "cracks in the walls and sunken footings".^[6] Local Uighurs said they saw this as an attempt to banish Kadeer's shadow; the Uighur American Association said the demolition may spark a new round of violence.^[28]

The 10 Conditions of Love[link]

Director Jeff Daniels shot a documentary film in 2009 about Kadeer, called The 10 Conditions of Love. It was destined to be screened at the Melbourne International Film Festival. The organisers refused a request from Chinese consulate in Melbourne for the film to be withdrawn and for Kadeer's invitation to the festival to be rescinded. Several Chinese directors pulled out of the event. The festival website was hacked and festival information replaced with the Chinese flag and anti-Kadeer slogans, and booked out all film sessions on the site; a denial-of-service attack forced it to shut down.^[29][30] Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said China was "firmly opposed to any foreign country providing her with a stage for her anti-China separatist activities". However, Daniels said it was good that "people were able to see different sides of the story" and criticised the heavy pressure from the Chinese government.^[31][32][33]

Australian Federal Labor Member of Parliament, Michael Danby, transmitted a message of support for the screening from 14th Dalai Lama, saying: "...[Kadeer] is another one of the national leaders who is a paradigm of non-violence." Danby said the Dalai Lama, "wanted to make it very clear to people that the claims of this woman being a violent person or instigating violence, is from his point of view, and with all of his authority, wrong."^[34]

The documentary was scheduled to be shown at the Kaoshiung Film Festival, Taiwan, in October 2009, but was later rescheduled to September, before the festival due to opposition from the PRC.^[35] Wang Yi of the Taiwan Work Office of the Communist Party of China opposed the film, saying it "beatifies the ethnic separatists" and sends "the wrong signals about terrorism and violence",^[36] while the Chinese government warned the Kaoshiung city government not to "stir up trouble".^[37] The website for the festival was also hacked.^[38][39] It was later announced that the film would be shown at the film festival as originally planned. Premier Wu Den-yih said the government would protect freedom of speech,^[40] but Kadeer's entry ban from Taiwan was extended by three years "based on security needs".^[21]

Works[link]

• with Cavelius, Alexandra (2008). Die Himmelsstürmerin: Chinas Staatsfeindin NR. 1 erzählt aus ihrem Leben. Heyne. ISBN 978-3-453-64041-2. (German)
• English edition: Dragon Fighter: One Woman's Epic Struggle for Peace with China. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. ISBN 978-0-9798456-1-1. (restricted online copy at Google Books)

Notes[link]

• Oxford University interviewed Kadeer, available in iTunes. The release date strangely appears "23 June 2018". The author is listed as "Rebiya Kadeer (Rabiya Kadeer)," with "Oxford University" as the provider. The description reads "Rebiya Kadeer (Rabiya Kadeer), Washington DC, USA. Left Xinjiang in 2005 for Washington DC and now is the president of the World Uyghur Congress, the most significant Uighur leader, either in China or abroad, and a hate figure for the Chinese government". (iTunes: Forced Migrations Online Documentaries- Interview with Uyghur leader Rebiya Kadeer)

References[link]

Additional References

• Esposito, John L.; Voll, John Obert; Bakar, Osman (2007). Asian Islam in the 21st Century. Oxford University Press US. ISBN 978-0-19-533302-2.
• Millward, James A. (2007). Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978023113924.