Freed China Prisoner Details 1999 Arrest

[Judi Lynn]

Freed China Prisoner Details 1999 Arrest
By WILLIAM C. MANN
Associated Press Writer

March 24, 2005, 3:21 AM EST

WASHINGTON -- The United States badgered China for three years to free Rebiya Kadeer, a wealthy member of that country's Muslim minority who was accused of sending Chinese newspapers to her husband in the United States.
Finally released from custody last week, Kadeer said Wednesday the real story of her arrest had more to do with documents she was carrying that night in 1999 to a meeting with staff members of the U.S. Congressional Research Service.

The papers outlined human rights and other alleged Chinese abuses of Kadeer's Uyghur people, Muslims in Xinjiang province of western China who are ethnically related to the peoples of Central Asia, not China.

"One was an appeal, a call for help basically, to the American people," Kadeer said in an interview. "It contained human rights problems, issues that the Uyghur people were facing and that we needed help with."

Another document she had, Kadeer said, "was a list of political prisoners who were on death sentence."
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http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-us-china-muslim-prisoner,0,2681774.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines