Long an obscure issue to much of the world, the simmering resentment against Beijing's rule by the mostly Muslim Uighur community burst into the open in July last year as riots engulfed Urumqi, capital of the vast Xinjiang region.

The violence catapulted into the spotlight Rebiya Kadeer, a department store tycoon turned activist. The 63-year-old mother of 11 spent years in a Chinese prison before she was allowed to go into exile in the United States in 2005.

"I'm just an ordinary woman, yet the Chinese government is so fearful of what I say and do. That shows I stand for justice," Kadeer, her booming voice softened by a smile, told AFP in her tiny office in Washington.

Since the unrest, Kadeer has become an itinerant traveler -- and a top public enemy for China.

Kadeer has packed crowds in Australia and Japan, which both defied Chinese demands to refuse her entry. She has been invited three times alone to France, where she said there was little interest in the Uighurs before.

But despite a growing profile, Kadeer said that world leaders have been too tepid in standing up to China.

She says that her sources indicated that Chinese authorities have been going door to door since the unrest, rounding up suspicious Uighurs and justifying the raids with occasional announcements of busted "Islamic terrorist" cells.

Kadeer said it was impossible to give an exact number of detained Uighurs due to Internet restriction and a climate of fear.

"Imagine if something like this happened in Palestine or Iraq -- the whole world would be screaming. But in East Turkestan, thousands of people are dying or disappearing and who's talking about it?" she said, using the Uighurs' name for Xinjiang.

"China's economic power gives it the opportunity to crack down on the Uighurs because they can silence Western governments and also Muslim governments," she said.

"They want to finish with us before the world knows more about the Uighurs the way they know about the Tibetans," she said.

Chinese authorities say that nearly 200 people were killed and up to 1,700 injured in clashes in Urumqi pitting Uighurs against members of China's dominant Han group.

China has pledged to improve conditions in Xinjiang. It has said it would pour around 10 billion yuan (1.5 billion dollars) in development aid into the region beginning in 2011 to raise Uighur living standards and quell discontent.

Kadeer was dismissive of any shift in Chinese policy and said that Uighurs' grievances were due to suppression of their political and cultural rights as Beijing encourages more Han to settle in Xinjiang.

"If they truly changed the policy, then they should release innocent and the injured Uighurs and they would apologize -- not only to the Uighurs, but to all the people of East Turkestan -- for what they've done," she said.

China has accused Kadeer and her World Uighur Congress of fomenting last year's unrest, charges she denies.

In the aftermath, three of Kadeer's children went on China's state-run television to denounce her. One son, Alim, said that "with such a strong country, she will not succeed in her separatist endeavors."

The normally steely Kadeer fought back tears as she spoke of her children, who she said were coerced by Chinese authorities.

"First they arrested my children, then they kicked them out of their residences, and then they even brought them on television to speak against me. What else can you do to hurt a mother?" she said, opening her desk drawer to fumble through newspaper clippings of her children's remarks.

Composing herself, Kadeer pounded her first on the table.

"This isn't easy for me; this has been very difficult," she said. "But I know that this is a battle that we'll win."

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