WASHINGTON - The White House on Thursday welcomed Beijing's release of long-time jailed Uighur dissident Rebiya Kadeer just days before US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was due to arrive in China.
"We welcome the announcement of her release," spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters.
Kadeer, 58, among leading members of China's Uighur ethnic group in the largely Muslim autonomous region of Xinjiang Uighur, was arrested in August 1999 while on her way to meet with a US Congressional staff delegation.
The mother of 11 has been a symbol of struggle of the approximately eight million Turkish-speaking and mainly Muslim Uighurs, who make up one of China's largest ethnic minority groups.
Kadeer, expected in Washington late Thursday, will join her husband and five of her children who live in the United States, Kadeer's Virginia-based daughter Akida Rouzi said.
"She is on her way to the US after being released from prison in Xinjiang province. We are delighted that she will now rejoin her family and we welcome her arrival," said a senior US administration official.
"We call on the Chinese government to release all others who are imprisoned unjustly for the peaceful expression of their political and religious beliefs," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
At the same time, the official confirmed that Washington would not propose a resolution criticizing China's alleged human rights abuses at this year's session of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
"The United States will not be tabling a human rights resolution at the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva this year, due to some progress in commitments made by China in areas of great concern to the United States and the international community," the official said.
"We remain very concerned about the human rights situation in China, as document recently in our human rights report," said the official.
Kadeer's release also came ahead of talks in Brussels between China and the European Union likely to focus on the lifting of a 15-year-old arms embargo -- a step Washington has fiercely opposed.
The EU has demanded China do more to improve its human rights record before the ban is removed.
Kadeer was charged in 1999 with "providing secret information to foreigners" and jailed for eight years after a secret trial.
According to leaked transcripts of her trial, the intelligence she supplied overseas was newspaper clippings on the treatment of Uighurs in Xinjiang.
03/17/2005 16:11 GMT