China Death Sentences Will Not Help Peace: Rebiya Kadeer

A day after a Chinese court handed down death sentences to six men for involvement in last July’s riots in the western Xinjiang province, exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer on Tuesday said the decision will ‘further enrage’ the ethnic minority.

Kadeer, currently on a visit to New Zealand, said she did not believe the trials of the six had been conducted fairly under Chinese or international law.

“This is not going to create peace and stability in the region, this will further enrage the Uighur people,” said Kadeer, who spent several years in Chinese prisons before being released into exile in the US.

She was speaking through an interpreter.

The six Uighur men were convicted of what the Chinese state media describes as serious crimes during last July’s riots in the provincial capital of Urumqi.

While the ethnicity of those sentenced on Monday was not reported, all the convicts had Uighur sounding names.