Monitoring desk
\nOSAKA, Japan
\nAn exiled advocate for China\u2019s ethnic Uighur minority Friday urged world leaders gathered in Japan for the G20 summit to confront Chinese President Xi Jinping over the \u201cgenocide\u201d of her Muslim people.
\nSpeaking to reporters on the sidelines of the Osaka meeting, Rebiya Kadeer said strong world pressure was essential to free an estimated one million people, mostly ethnic Uighurs, held in internment camps in western China.
\n\u201c(The) entire Uighur people are facing (an) existential threat, and its real and urgent,\u201d Kadeer, the 72-year-old head of the World Uyghur Congress, said through an interpreter.
\nChinese officials describe the camps as voluntary \u201cvocational education centers\u201d where Turkic-speaking Uighurs receive job training.
\nBut rights groups and former inmates describe them as \u201cconcentration camps\u201d where Uighurs and other minorities are being forcefully assimilated into China majority ethnic Han society.
\nKadeer said Uighur culture could vanish if \u201cstrong actions\u201d are not taken by China\u2019s trading partners.
\n\u201cI call (on) European countries who are economically dependent on China to wake up and stand up against Chinese genocide of Uighurs and take practical actions immediately.\u201d
\nMore than 100 demonstrators later gathered in Osaka to protest against the camps, as well as moves in Hong Kong to diminish the Chinese city\u2019s unique freedoms.
\nKadeer\u2019s presence in Osaka will no doubt anger China, which labels her a dangerous separatist and has previously condemned Japan for allowing her entry.
\nKadeer extended her thanks to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the summit\u2019s host, for resisting Beijing\u2019s pressure.
\nXinjiang is a remote, resource-rich region bordering on central Asia that has long seethed with sporadic violence over Uighur allegations of Chinese repression.
\nKadeer was a successful Xinjiang businesswoman hailed in the 1990s by China as proof that its policies were good for the country\u2019s many ethnic minorities.
\nBut she fell out with authorities and was jailed six years after complaining about Uighur repression.
\nShe was released and went abroad in 2005, settling in the United States and becoming leader of the World Uyghur Congress, which advocates respect for Uighur culture.
\nChina accuses her of instigating deadly Uighur rioting in Xinjiang in 2009 that killed at least 197 people, according to state media.
\nShe strongly denies the charge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Monitoring desk OSAKA, Japan An exiled advocate for China\u2019s ethnic Uighur minority Friday urged world leaders gathered in Japan for the G20 summit to confront Chinese President Xi Jinping over the \u201cgenocide\u201d of her Muslim people. Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the Osaka meeting, Rebiya Kadeer said strong world pressure was essential to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n