When I traveled in Xinjiang province in China the summer of 2000, I shopped in the Rebiya Kadeer building.  It was a fabulous bazaar of shops.  I describe it in my book:

    The Rebiya Kadeer building was just my kind of place.  It was the Mall of America reduced, unfranchised and gone native. The Rebiya Kadeer building was packed with people and purses and dresses and furniture.  Immediately, I saw traditional Uyghur dancing costumes, gorgeous dresses of long and radiant sheer silk worn with a black vest and long scarves.  There were counters of perfumes of oils and alcohols in bottles and crusty little canisters.  I saw copper kettles from Kashgar and embroidered leather coats from Turkey, brass ornaments from Pakistan and rayon dresses from India, fur hats from Russia and more silk from China.  And everywhere, the scents of roses and amber and sandalwood. 

At that time, I learned that Rebiya Kadeer was a famous Uyghur business woman who had acquired great wealth which she shared generously with her Uyghur people.  And Rebiya Kadeer was in prison. 

From the website of Amnesty International dated March 17, 2005:

Background information on Rebiya Kadeer

Rebiya Kadeer founded and directed a large trading company in northwestern China, championed the rights of the Uighur ethnic group there, and became one of China’s most prominent advocates of women’s rights. All these activities came to an abrupt halt in August 1999 when police arrested her as she entered a hotel to discuss human rights with U.S. Congressional staff who were visiting China.

Rebiya Kadeer has spent more than five years jailed in a region where prison conditions are notoriously harsh. Prisoners in China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region receive poor food, inadequate sanitation, and little medical treatment. Amnesty International has expressed grave concern about reports of Rebiya Kadeer’s deteriorating health.

The Chinese government charged Rebiya Kadeer in September 1999 with “providing secret information to foreigners” even though the local newspapers she was carrying at the time of her arrest were all publicly available, as were the newspapers she had sent to her husband in the United States. Authorities tried her in secret and sentenced her in March 2000 to eight years’ imprisonment. In early 2004, authorities reduced her sentence by one year.

A successful and charismatic businesswoman, Kadeer used her resources to provide fellow Uighurs, the region’s predominantly Muslim majority ethnic group, with training and employment. The Chinese government had recognized her contributions by appointing her to its prestigious national advisory group, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. The government also appointed her to its delegation participating in the 1995 United Nations World Conference on Women. She was a standing member of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region Chamber of Commerce, and in 1997, she founded the Thousand Mothers Movement to promote women’s rights and economic security.