WASHINGTON, DC (AFP) - Rebiya Kadeer, long a champion for China's 10 million Uighurs, is blamed by the Beijing government as the instigator of protests that left scores of the ethnic minority Muslims dead and hundreds more detained.

The 62-year-old grandmother and mother of 11 spent six years in prison in China before being deported in March 2005 to join her family in the United States. The former millionaire businesswoman, once among the wealthiest people in China, calls herself the "daughter of the Uighur people."

Beijing, however, has denounced her as a terrorist and separatist and "not qualified" to represent the Uighurs, who live in China's remote northwest Xinjiang province bordering Afghanistan and central Asia.

The Chinese government also has pegged her as responsible for deadly weekend riots in Xinjiang that have killed at least 156 people and led to the arrests of hundreds, according to state media. But Kadeer strongly refutes those charges.

"These accusations are completely false. I did not organize the protests or call on people to demonstrate," she told journalists in Washington Monday.

State media said the deaths occurred when Muslim Uighurs went on a rampage in some of the deadliest ethnic unrest in China in decades.

But Uighur leaders said the riots started after Chinese police attacked a peaceful protest.

In characteristic fashion, Kadeer slammed the Beijing government for what she described as repressive tactics against her people.

"Uighurs face arbitrary detention, torture and execution," she said.

"Any Uighur who dares to express the slightest protest, however peaceful, is immediately met with brutal force, instead of any attempt to deal responsibly with the real problems they face."

Kadeer once enjoyed the trust of the Chinese authorities, being a member of the inner national advisory group.

But when her Uighur husband and former political prisoner Sidik Rouzi fled China for the United States in 1996, Beijing kept a close watch on her.

She was detained in August 1999, on her way to meet a visiting delegation from the US Congressional Research Service to complain about political prisoners in Xinjiang. Beijing then jailed her for endangering national security.

"I am now free and I hope my people will also be free some day," she said.

An autonomous region four times the size of California, Xinjiang is the only place in China where political prisoners are executed and subject to special forms of torture, according to rights groups.

Kadeer said some 100,000 Uighurs are languishing in jail for their political and religious beliefs.

"If China wants to become a great nation worthy of the respect it hungers for, then it should learn to respect the human rights of the people under its rule," Kadeer, a forceful speaker with an infectious smile, told AFP in an interview several months ago.

Since her release from prison four years ago, she and her family have been plagued by troubles, including the dissolution of her businesses in Xinjiang's capital Urumchi, and the detention of her children who remain in China.

Kadeer's son, Ablikim Abdiriyim, was sentenced in April 2007 to nine years in prison for what Beijing called "secessionist" activities.

Two other sons were jailed for alleged tax evasion while her daughter was placed under house arrest in 2006.

"They know I love my children, so they went for them," Kadeer said.

Last year, the Uighur rights activist accused China of fabricating alleged plots against the Olympics to blacken her community's name.

"It's completely untrue. All these allegations are falsified," she said.

"The real goal of the Chinese government is to organize a terrorist attack so that it can increase its crackdown on the Uighur people."

Kadeer enjoys broad support in her adopted homeland.

The US House of Representatives passed a resolution nearly two years ago calling on Beijing to release her children and cease "acts of cultural, linguistic and religious suppression directed against the Uighur people."

And former president George W. Bush, who met Kadeer in June 2007, also lent her his support, accusing Beijing of jailing her sons in retaliation against her human rights campaign.

"The talent of men and women like Rebiya is the greatest resource of their nations--far more valuable than the weapons of their army or oil under the ground," Bush said.

The remarks angered Beijing, who accused the US leader of "blatant interference in China's internal affairs." (By P. PARAMESWARAN/AFP)