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Selahattin Onur KARLIK

14070421001

s.onurkarlik@gmail.com

MOTHER of UYGHERS: REBİYA KADEER

She was born in 1947 in East Turkestan. She lived a poor childhood. She says that her family always try to being strong under hard conditions. According to her autobiography, Dragon Fighter: One Woman's Epic Struggle for Peace with China, Rebiya Kadeer's father served with pro-Soviet Uyghur rebels under the Second East Turkestan Republic in the Ili Rebellion (Three Province Rebellion) in 1944-1946, using Soviet assistance and aid to fight the Republic of China government under Chiang Kai-shek. Kadeer and her family were close friends with White Russian exiles living in Xinjiang and Kadeer recalled that many Uyghurs thought Russian culture was "more advanced" than that of the Uyghurs and they "respected" the Russians a lot.

When her father is beaten, and her family is forced from their home in Uyghurstan (a swath of Chinese land north of Tibet), Kadeer's idyllic childhood comes crashing to an end. Though still a young woman, she resolves to defend Uyghurs from "tireless Communist indoctrination;" by 1957, she writes, "I wanted to stop seeing posters of Chairman Mao's adipose face, with that forever grinning mouth, plastered over every wall." Kadeer charts the routine public humiliation, banishment, execution, and forced flight of her Ugyhur friends and neighbors.

Due to poverty, Kadeer had to enter her first marriage as a housewife and having 6 children, but at some point she began independently making and selling clothes and other small articles for additional income. Rebiya Kadeer after leaving her first husband, 27-year-old mother of six has established a company in the textile sector and although it has been so successful with this business that eventually became the owner of two stores in Urumqi. In 1978, she married with Siddiq Haji Rozi, made with 3 children, 2 of their adoptive child.  They moved to Ürümqi with their 5 children. In Ürümqi,she hirerd...