[Mitai-announce] Tomorrow 6pm: RHETORIC and REPRESSION of Uyghur Muslims in Western China

[Kayvan]

RHETORIC and REPRESSION
of Uyghur Muslims in Western China

Come listen to Rebiya Kadeer, often described as the spiritual mother or 
Dalai Lama of the Uyghurs, discuss how Chinese minority policies are 
affecting her people. (Detailed event description below.)

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TOMORROW NIGHT, TUESDAY, MAY 15
7:30 - 9:00pm
Room 66-110 (Landau Building)

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A brilliant businesswoman, Rebiya Kadeer rose from poverty to become 
China's millionaire minority poster child. However, she quickly fell out 
of the government's favor when she began to demand a change in its 
policies toward the Uyghur minority. She was arrested in 1999 for 
sending newspaper articles to her husband in the United States and was 
released to America in 2005. Ms. Kadeer currently resides in Washington, 
D.C., where she serves as president of the Uyghur American Association 
and the World Uyghur Congress. She was nominated for the Nobel Peace 
Prize in 2006.

Fearful of separatist tendencies in the majority Muslim population in 
its westernmost province, China has instituted a systematic repression 
that has failed to discriminate between legitimate threats to state 
security and peaceful religious practice and tradition. After September 
11, China has used blanket accusations of terrorism to justify 
repressive policies that suppress any Islamic ideology that does not, 
according to a PRC internal document, "uphold the Marxist point of view 
of religion and use the yardstick of the Party's."

Cosponsored by:
MIT Program for Human Rights and Justice
MIT Muslim Students' Association
Amnesty International
MIT Model United Nations
MIT Public Service Center
Forum on American Progress