Uighur rejects terror claims

By TOMISLAV SKARO

Associated Press Writer

BERLIN (AP) -- A leading activist for ethnic Uighurs denied Chinese accusations the Muslim minority group is planning terrorist attacks tied to the Beijing Olympics, saying Monday that Chinese leaders are trying to distract attention from their problems with Tibet.

China has made at least two claims of a terrorist conspiracy centered on the August games, both of them linked to Uighur separatists in China's far-western Xinjiang region.

"Just recently the Chinese authorities said that they arrested some 45 Uighurs, and that they were terrorists planning to attack foreign tourists, athletes and reporters," Rebiya Kadeer, the president of the World Uighur Congress, said at a conference in Berlin.

"The Chinese government is attempting to divert the attention from Tibet and get the international community to focus on us," Kadeer said.

China has tried to portray the insurgency in Xinjiang as linked to terrorist organizations in Central Asia and the Middle East. Evidence has often been scant, though, and some terrorism experts and overseas law enforcement officials have questioned whether such ties exist.

Human rights groups contend China exaggerates such threats so it can clamp down on the Uighurs and arrest dissidents. Resentment against the Chinese rule has long simmered in China's traditionally Muslim western region, which borders Afghanistan, Pakistan and Russia.

Speaking through an interpreter, Kadeer, a Muslim from Xinjiang now living in exile in the United States, called for foreign leaders to stay away from the Olympics' opening ceremony.

Western democracies should definitely support our struggle for human rights and democracy, and should definitely exert pressure on China ," she added.