Uighur leader slams Book Fair for honoring China

Sun Oct 18, 3:29 pm ET
FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer sharply criticized the Frankfurt Book Fair for inviting China as its guest this year, arguing that the country should not be honored given its poor human rights track record.
"It is just not right to welcome a country, where executions are a daily occurrence and human rights are treated with disrespect," Kadeer, a former businesswoman who now leads the exile group the World Uighur Congress, said at the book fair on Sunday, the last day of the fair.
"Before the Olympic Games, the world was of the opinion China would be forced to respect human rights more as the world turned its attention to the games in China," said Kadeer, her long grey hair in her signature braids and wearing a traditional four-cornered Uighur cap.
Amnesty International in a report last year criticized China for failing to honor vows to improve rights that officials made in lobbying for the Games, and said it did not live up to commitments as an Olympic host in 2008.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091018/media_nm/us_books_china_uighur