More accusations from Rebiya’s family

Beijing Times
August 5, 2009

Chinese media continued to air complaints about Rebiyа Kаdeer from members of her family.

Shortly after an open letter, purportedly written and signed by the children of the exiled Uighur dissident, turned up in the media, today’s Beijing Times (and many other national newspapers) printed a Xinhua article based on an interview with Alim, Rebiyа’s youngest son.

Alim, 33, has been imprisoned for tax evasion since 2007:

When the investigators went to the company to investigate tax evasion, mother gave me a phone call from abroad to tell me that we should cover ourselves in gasoline, go out into the square to protest, and then burn ourselves. I hung up without saying a word. I couldn’t understand how, as a mother, she could have no feelings toward me. I am a father, and I love my children and they still need me. So I didn’t do it. I would never do that.

Alim also described his imprisonment: “I started to run the company in 1999. It was my mother who dodged taxes before that. When mother was in charge, my step-father called us almost every day to urge us not to pay taxes to the government.”

The article also quoted Rebiyа’s younger brother, who stated that based on a phone call he received six hours prior to the riot in which she said “something big is going to happen,” he believed that his sister was aware of the incident before it happened.

Today’s Beijing News featured a different Rebiyа story in its front-page sidebar: “Rebiyа’s children: Our mother constantly asked us for money.” The article inside was a write-up of a CCTV report about Alim:

They have always been provoking Uighurs to damage ethnic solidarity and unity, because that is how they survive abroad. She asked us to wire more money through different channels all the time. She needs money abroad. She also called incessantly for confrontation against the government and asked us to arrange protests outside of the public security bureau and on the square….My mother embarked on a road with no turning back, because separatists can never separate such a strong country.