Following are excerpts from an interview with Rabiye Qadir, President of the World Uyghur Congress, which aired on BBC Arabic on November 9, 2009. 
 

Interviewer: The editor-in-chief of a Pakistani newspaper said that those who were behind the incidents in the Xinjiang province in July 2009 were also behind the incidents in Tibet last year – in other words, foreign forces. What do you have to say to that? 
 

Rabiye Qadir: These are baseless claims. The Chinese government is used to spreading lies. This is pure propaganda. The government that blamed the Dalai Lama for the events in Tibet blamed me for the events in Xinjiang, in East Turkistan. The Chinese government fabricates these lies. What they say in Pakistan is nothing but Chinese propaganda. 
 

Interviewer: But you are both supported by international powers. Isn’t that the case? 
 

Rabiye Qadir: Yes, you could say that. But we are not exactly the same. Neither of us can get a response from the dictatorial Chinese government. We seek help, first and foremost, from Allah, and then from the democratic world. 
 

[...] 
 

Interviewer: Mrs. Qadir, do you condone the attacks attributed to Uyghur activists in China in general, and in the Xinjiang province, in particular? 
 

Rabiye Qadir: The Uyghur people have not made any mistakes. When I say this, people might think that I am concealing what happened. We are Muslims – Uyghur Muslims – and we number 20 million. Over the past 60 years, the Chinese government has used all possible means to turn us into atheists. All the religious scholars have been arrested. The [government] has fabricated lies to deceive the Islamic world. The Uyghur people is only demanding its basic human rights – [including] its freedom of worship – which is has been denied. We believe in Islam, and they would like to turn us into atheists. The Chinese government is forcing us to become atheists, and now, it is calling us terrorists. 
 

[...] 
 

Interviewer: At the highest point of the recent violence in Xinjiang, the Turkish prime minister was the staunchest opponent of the Chinese government. Is there a special relationship between the Uyghurs and Turkey, considering your Turkish roots? 
 

Rabiye Qadir: I am, first and foremost, a Muslim, and secondly, I am a Uyghur. I am their sister, just like I am the sister of all the Muslims in the world. As a matter of fact, they should have supported us a long time ago. To this day, the Chinese authorities are perpetrating a genocide of the Uyghurs. They are killing us Uyghurs. All the Islamic scholars who defend the rights of the Uyghurs have been sent to prison. more than 10,000 religious leaders are in prison now. In my view, the Turkish government said what it said in an effort to achieve justice. 
 

[...] 
 

Interviewer: You say that the Chinese authorities are persecuting you because of your religion. How can this be possible, when we hear that in Urumqi, the capital of the region, alone, there are approximately 439 mosques? 

Rabiye Qadir: The Chinese are deceiving the whole world this way. There may be even more mosques than that there. There are many beautiful mosques, built by the Chinese government, but they have taken control of them, by placing people they trust in these mosques. The real imams are all in prison. 
 

I have a lot more to say. You should go there and see the plaques hanging in front of the mosques. They state clearly that anybody under 18 is forbidden from entering the mosques, and that government workers would be fired if they prayed in a mosque. This policy is displayed clearly inside the mosque. Girls who cover their heads are expelled from the colleges and universities. 
 

[...] 
 

Interviewer: Mrs. Qadir, American officials have alleged that some people carrying Chinese passports were caught among Al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan. How do you respond to this? 
 

Rabiye Qadir: Yes, many [Uyghur] people have entered and left Afghanistan. But it cannot be said that they are terrorists, merely because they were in Afghanistan. We share borders with Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. 
 

Interviewer: Are you saying that to the best of your knowledge, no Uyghur fights in the ranks of Al-Qaeda or Taliban? 
 

Rabiye Qadir: As far as I know, there may be one, two, or five Uyghurs [among their ranks]. We still have doubts about this. But these people do not represent the Uyghur people. It is possible that the Chinese government is sending Uyghurs to join Al-Qaeda, in order to portray them as terrorists.