Photo courtesy of The Epoch Times.

Known For: Human rights activist
Dates: 1947
Country: China

About

Rebiya Kadeer is an international human rights activist from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, which is located in western China. She campaigns for the rights of women and Uyghurs in China, a Muslim ethnic minority in China. Her work in speaking out against the ongoing repression and discrimination towards Uyghurs in China has earned her the title “the Mother of all Uyghurs.”¹ She has been awarded the 2004 Rafto Prize and been given the highest human rights award from Human Rights Watch.² Today, she is the president of the World Uyghur Congress and continues to promote international awareness about the Uyghur people’s continuing struggle for human rights in China.

Once the seventh wealthiest person in China, Kadeer began her career as a laundress but soon created an import and export trading empire.³ Her tremendous success propelled her into regional politics when the Chinese government asked her to become a member of the National People’s Congress. However, her attempts to end economic and cultural discrimination against Uyghurs in China contributed to her eventual imprisonment as a political dissident. Jailed on charges of leaking state secrets to foreigners in 1999, Rebiya was imprisoned for six years before international pressure from organizations such as Amnesty International succeeded in securing her release in 2005. Rebiya was exiled to the United States where she continues to promote international awareness about the Uyghur people’s continuing struggle for human rights in China.

As a mother with eleven children, Rebiya tells her story as a Uyghur woman living in Xinjiang, China, in her memoir, Dragon Fighter: One Woman’s Epic Struggle for Peace with China. Her unique story as an abused wife, laundress, government official, political prisoner, and human rights activist offers a dramatic account of the Uyghur experience in China. She shares the story of the Uyghurs through her story, describing the complex history of the Uyghur people in addition to the social inequities which have stripped away all “forms of cultural, economic, political, and religious autonomy.” ⁴

Before she was exiled, Rebiya founded a series of grassroots movements aimed to empower local Uyghur children and women. As the first Uyghur to build a department store in Xinjiang, Rebiya used the building to offer educational classes to underprivileged Uyghur youth. She also founded the short-lived, but influential organization, “The Thousand Mothers Movement,” which sought to empower women by encouraging political and economic engagement.⁵

Rebiya twice been a Nobel Peace Prize nominee for her work in human rights activism. In 2009, she was the subject of a documentary film entitled “The Ten Conditions of Love,” which discussed her ongoing efforts to promote nonviolence as well as the tremendous impact of her social activism on her own family. Despite the Chinese government’s effort to cast her as a terrorist, Rebiya continues to advocate nonviolence and calls on the Chinese government to end its torture, criminalization, and discrimination of the Uyghur people.⁶

[1] Biography of Rebiya Kadeer,” Amnesty International.
[2] ibid.
[3] ibid.
[4] Rebiya Kadeer, “Dragon Fighter: One Woman’s Epic Struggle for Peace with China,” New York: Kales Press, 2009.
[5] “Introducing the World Uyghur Congress,” Uyghur World Congress.
[6] “Unveiled Rebiya Kadeer: A Uighur Dalai Lama,” The Global Times.