China is trying to strangle
my people in their cradle...
and kill them before their
voice reaches the world.
They said the Chinese
government already realized...
how dangerous it would be...
if Rebiya Kadeer receives a Nobel Peace Prize.
Therefore, the Chinese government
wants to stop Rebiya Kadeer...
from receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.
Omar Kanat, you always give me great ideas.
I always use some of your words
when people interview me.
Firstly, it says my country is
Xinjiang in Western China.
While I am a Uyghur leader, I will
never use such a word in an article.
I'd rather not publish such an ugly article
it is a betrayal and insult to the Uyghur
people.
Listen, laws work for you in America.
Don't worry about them, worry about yourself.
Say that a solution to the East Turkestan
problem is a solution for Central Asia.
Didn,t you talk about the importance
of Uyghurs and Eastern Turkistan?
We did, we did say those...
I did say those things.
Yes, Mom?
Why can,t you all just come to my house?
It's only an hour away, right?
Come straight to my place.
Well, then I'll pick you up at your place.
Alright. See you later.
Go keep Mom company while I'm gone.
Are you tired, Elyar?
Go to bed. You have school tomorrow.
Elyar, can you go get me
a blanket from the other room?
I am from Altay...
in the Northern region of East Turkestan.
In summer, we swam in the rivers...
and rode the horses.
We picked flowers from the mountains.
Bird calls created a wonderful music.
The environment was beautiful then.
When the Communist Liberation Army
arrived...
they played a really smart game.
They hand-picked certain people...
and positioned them at the front of the
crowds...
to applaud the army,s arrival
You see, in the beginning, the soldiers
just started to clean everywhere.
They would help old people carry water.
They used to treat people who were sick.
They did a lot of good things.
After two months,
they started to make demands.
They said all Uyghurs who are rich
and making money...
are devils and are taking money
from ordinary people.
They told us these Uyghurs must be
destroyed.
Rich Uyghurs were executed in every village.
Any Uyghur who spoke out
was killed or imprisoned.
The government implemented a plan...
to spread us throughout
our homeland to separate us.
My father was branded as a capitalist.
Therefore, when I was a young child,
we were forced to move south to Aksul.
So to control the Uyghurs, they
disempowered them, made them poor.
Second, they gave them no proper education
and third, they took their religion.
At this point, Uyghurs began to open their
eyes.
But it was too late. They were already
colonized.
Every time there was a resistance, I wanted
to be a member and join their movement.
I was proud of them, of what they were doing.
They were my heroes.
At this time my ex-husband,s
salary was very low.
He earned only seven dollars a month.
I had six kids, I couldn't live on this.
So I began to secretly embroider
designs on kids shoes and clothing.
Eventually my embroidery work
was found out.
As my ex-husband was a communist
party member and cadre,
the government bank where he worked
pressured my husband to divorce me.
I experienced much hardship
when I started my business...
as people didn,t have respect for me.
But I proved them all wrong.
I travelled through many villages...
and saw the poor state of my people.
As I became more successful,
I understood why the Chinese government...
left Uyghur people disadvantaged.
When you,re poor,
you can,t organise with others...
to discuss your situation, your people,
your nation,s future.
After divorcing my first husband...
I laid out 10 conditions of love on my ideal
man.
A noble man who could free my people,
a man who could pay a personal
price for his people's freedom,
and reject bribes of money or gifts
for political favors.
To find him, I took a flight to Kashgar...
and then a car to a small town,
from where I walked for many miles.
I didn't know if he was handsome or not.
I knew only one thing, that he loves his
people.
I surprised the villagers when I arrived...
wearing an expensive dress and white mink
coat.
When I first saw him, I was surprised.
He was so young, and very handsome.
At first he was speechless.
He asked me, 'Why did you come here?
Why are you looking for me?'
It was like an angel had
dropped from the sky.
I was totally shocked.
I said, 'I'm going to help you...
and you're going to help me...
and we are both going to help our people...
and therefore I want to marry you.'
Look, during this time I was very attractive.
I had long beautiful hair.
How could he resist me?
The other villagers became suspicious.
They told me perhaps
Rebiya is a spy...
but I never suspected her.
Still I asked her,
just to be sure.
This made her angry,
quite angry.
She's still angry.
I said I'll leave now,
but you'll come looking for me.
And he did.
He completely remembered my face, my hair,
my words, my whole appearance...
and wrote me a book of 260 poems.
''A bullet has wounded my heart...
and I am a lonely bird,
who cannot find a place to land.''
This was the first poem in his book:
Soon after this we were married.
I still ask myself what a
woman like Rebiya saw in me.
I had no money, no job,
nothing.
But she knows my heart,
she knows I love my country...
and she knows that I love her.
They were poor, not because
they were unintelligent,
but because of China's policies.
When I started the 1000 Mothers movement,
I was planning on creating heroes.
I told them, 'If you save yourself,
and your family, then you will become a hero.'
'Nobody,s coming to save you.'
'You must save yourself.'
For some, I became a savior...
and others began to praise me.
I felt obligated to help them...
and this feeling grows every day.
I felt like I was chosen among a very modern
and
select group of women.
I went ahead with a speech
about the persecution of Uyghurs.
But I was under surveillance.
The Chinese government thought
I would be someone who could follow orders.
This was not the case.
I heard that Sidik had become a
target for authorities.
How did Rebiya know this classified
information?
Because Chinese officials have wives.
I told Sidik he must leave the country,
but he resisted.
He said, 'My body and my heart will stay here.'
It,s the most difficult time when
a person has to leave his own country.
So I tricked him.
I said we have business to do in the US,
but when we arrived...
I immediately started the case
for his political asylum.
I was in Ghulja two hours after the attack.
I recorded everything.
I had cases of video and pictures.
When I got to the airport
they stripped everything from me.
At first I felt I could work
with the Chinese government.
I was thinking they must be human.
I handed them a very sugar coated speech.
My actual speech was quite different.
President Zemin promised to solve these
issues...
but I knew he wouldn't...
He's a liar.
Soon after they confiscated my passport...
and wherever I went I saw people following
me.
On August 11, 1999, I prepared 10
issues on the situation of the Uyghur people.
I was trying to hand the paper to a delegation
of US congressional staff visiting Western
China.
The police interrogated me for two
days and then they put me in prison.
The charge was leaking
national security information.
I did not commit a crime...
and they sentenced me
to eight years imprisonment.
I don't think I'm a criminal.
She had become a prisoner.
That was the most difficult time
of my entire life...
Just unthinkable.
I thought about her every single second.
I'd been in prison and I knew how difficult it
was.
It should've been me in prison, not her.
I was in solitary confinement for two years.
It was a dark room...
and there was all this waste on the floor.
It was only cleaned once a week.
Sometimes my whole body started to itch.
They brought Uyghur prisoners
into the room next to mine.
I know this because
I heard their screams all night.
They take you outside once every 45 days.
Even one minute felt like a year.
I could barely walk.
At first I couldn,t see...
Then I saw a bird flying in the sky and
I thought, why wasn't I like that?
I could just fly.
And you see, at this time...
you start to re-evaluate freedom.
You realize you don,t need money...
you don,t need clothes...
You don,t need anything.
And therefore, you are not afraid of death.
When I was in prison I became very sick,
but the authorities didn't care.
Only when Amnesty International,
Human Rights Watch got involved...
did the authorities take me to see doctors.
Wherever I live, I am Chinese.
China is my mother and father.
I swear absolutely for the unification of China.
I said, 'I will not create troubles for you,'...
that national separatists are bad...
that I was wrong, I was bad.
I was told I,d get eighteen
months medical care in the US.
They told me not to engage in political
activities,
or leak any information.
They told us that Rebiya had been freed...
but we had to stay quiet until
she was safely on the plane.
I didn't know what to say.
I was in complete shock.
- Are you going to go to your office?
- Yes, I have a meeting.
- You're not going with her?
- Sounds like Communist activity to me.
- See, he's always calling me a Communist.
- Only Communists have meetings everyday.
- Do I have meetings everyday?
Is that part done?
I need him to get that
translation done immediately.
I told him, 'Don't give me that dirty look.'
Give me a call when you're done,
I'll be here all day.
We have the right to self-determination.
I,m not saying independence,
I,m saying human rights and democracy.
If I lied and told the Chinese what they wanted
to hear, I would never have been imprisoned.
But I spoke the truth, and went to prison.
Yes, it is true they are watching me.
One time my daughter Ray saw these
people...
filming the front of my house.
It was suspicious when he reversed up...
and hit me a second time.
Now I present you with the very best...
of Uyghur culture, music and food...
the very things we wish to preserve,
and the Chinese government seeks to destroy.
They dragged my grandchildren
by their hair into a truck.
After this, 50 to 60 police officers
began beating my sons...
and they ordered my daughter to call me...
so that I could hear them screaming.
I heard my daughter say:
'They're killing my brother.'
She cried, 'Around 50 Chinese
are beating up my brother.'
After this chaotic noise,
the phone was disconnected.
That was the last time I was able
to communicate with my children.
What do these arrests tell us?
This shows first of all,
the Chinese government,s unfairness,
secondly, their unlimited shamelessness.
They think they can break my heart
because I am a mother,
if they arrest my four children
I cannot bear it.
That even if I am made of rock or metal,
I will eventually collapse.
The Chinese government has taken me very
lightly.
My current position is not because of
myself...
it,s the cry of 20 million people...
and my tears are mixed with theirs.
I will work until my last breath,
and my voice will never change.
Thank you.
Please use all of it.
You spoke like a poet.
I am not a poet, it is reality, it is what fills
me...
I want to die, Dolkum. I want to kill myself!
You did a good job.
I want to explode!
I have a question to ask...
What kind of government,
because of your political activities...
because of your parents' political activities...
takes revenge on your children?
If I stop now, they will free my children.
But they will eliminate my people
and destroy my land.
Then my happiness
will become my people's blood.
When we started campaigning...
for the human rights of our people in America,
Rebiya and I knew the dangers our family
faced.
But if we don,t fight then, who will?
Somebody must.
For one nation to stand
strong, one cannot lose hope.
What is China?
China is nothing.
Come to us, let's work together...
they say every drop of water makes an ocean.
Don't leave the hall,
I'm not collecting money today.
Don,t laugh.
Happy New Year, everybody!
Let's get this party happening.