Are you an Uighur?

China thought their extradition necessary to undercutting international sympathy for Uighur independence seekers.

In the 10th century Sogdiana was incorporated into the Uighur Empire, which until 840 encompassed northern Central Asia.

No Chinese citizen, regardless of whether he or she is Han, Tibetan, Uighur, or Mongolian, can vote the ruling party out of power.

Indeed, former President George W. Bush welcomed Rebiya Kadeer, a leader of the exiled Uighur independence movement, to the White House, embittering many Chinese.

And given that the Uighur bastion of Xinjiang is close to China s borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan, the US was unwise to raise Chinese hackles in this way.

By recklessly denying China s request to extradite Uighur extremists to China for trial, the US showed scant regard for an issue of paramount importance the threat posed to China s hard won unity by separatists.

The UN s Human Rights Council would not have dared to put Russia in the dock for razing Grozny, Chechnya s capital, or China for brutally suppressing the people of Tibet and the Muslim Uighur minority.

Which states will accept China as Asia s leader? Six decades of ruthless repression has failed to win China acceptance even in Tibet and Xinjiang, as the Tibetan and Uighur revolts of 2008 and 2009 attested.

Not only is the region important for meeting China s growing energy needs, but the Chinese authorities also are concerned about separatist pressures among the Uighur population in Xinjiang province and the impact of ties with Uighurs in neighboring Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

Moreover, China s hands off policy could end up jeopardizing its investments in Afghanistan not to mention the security threat that would arise were a re empowered Taliban to provide aid or sanctuary to the increasingly Islamist Uighur separatists in China s Xinjiang region.

The Committee notes with concern the reports from sources other than the State party relating to the right to the free exercise of religion as a right to take part in cultural life, and the use and teaching of minority languages, history and culture and the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) and the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).