Saturday, October 01, 2005

Nobel Peace Prize Endorsement

One of the nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize this year is Rebiya Kadeer. She spent over five years in Chinese prisons from 1999 to 2005 for publicizing the plight of her native Uigher people in East Turkestan under the repressive rule of Beijing. The Uighers are a Muslim people who speak a language related to Turkish and live in the Chinese controlled part of Turkestan east of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. As such they are a "politically incorrect" people frequently slandered as terrorists. The systematic violation of their human rights by the Chinese is thus largely ignored in the US. I hope Kadeer wins the Nobel Peace Prize. We all share a common humanity that deserves respect and dignity, even the Muslim Uighers of East Turkestan.

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