AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Beijing
Updated at 6.16pm:
Wednesday, July 12, 2006

A son of exiled Muslim rights activist Rebiya Kadeer has been tortured and forced to confess to attempts to separate the Muslim Xinjiang region from China, Amnesty International said on Wednesday.

Alim Abdiriyim confessed under torture on July 1, the international rights group said in a statement. Separatism carries a much harsher penalty than his original charge of tax fraud.

Amnesty cited a US-based non-governmental organisation, the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP), as saying Alim Abdiriyim may need urgent medical attention for injuries sustained during torture.

Another of Kadeer’s sons, Ablikim Abdiriyim, is reportedly still hospitalised after being beaten by police in early June, soon after he was detained.

He has been charged with “subversion, also a serious political charge, in addition to a tax fraud charge.

A spokesman for the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau’s publicity department confirmed the two men and their brother Kahar Abdiriyim have been arrested, but said he did not know any details.

A government-run website reported in June that police arrested the men on charges of evading 8.07 million yuan in taxes and owing another 21.6 million yuan in back taxes. They were formally charged on June 13.

The US State Department has expressed concern for the safety of the trio, who are all aged in their 30s, saying at least one may have been beaten in custody.

Kadeer was imprisoned and accused of leaking “state secrets to a US congressional delegation visiting the region in the 1990s. She was freed after six years in prison and allowed to go into exile to the United States in March last year.

Before her release, she was warned that if she engaged with members of the Uighur ethnic community or spoke publicly about “sensitive issues after her release, her “businesses and children will be finished.

All except one of her family businesses have since been closed and her children have reportedly been beaten. Her daughter Rushangul and brother Mamat Kadeer are reportedly under house arrest.

Four grandchildren are reportedly being prevented from leaving their homes to attend school, Amnesty said. There is no information on two other family members detained.

Kadeer’s plight has been a frequent diplomatic issue between the United States and China.

Kadeer, a millionaire businesswoman before her jailing, has long been a symbol of the struggle against Chinese rule amongst the eight-million-strong Xinjiang Uighur Muslim community.

Uighur Muslims, who maintain a distinct ethnic identity from the Chinese, have been struggling to reestablish their own homeland on territory that became an autonomous region of China in 1955.