Taiwan has decided not to allow Rebiya Kadeer to visit, an official said Friday, two days after the exiled Uighur leader, branded a "separatist" by Beijing, expressed a wish to travel to the island. "We have decided not to allow Kadeer entry considering that her visit could affect national interest and social order," Interior Minister Jiang Yi-huah said, according to an official with the Government Information Office.
"We don't wish to see the shadow of terrorism fall on Taiwan," he said in response to a lawmaker's question. He did not elaborate. Kadeer said this week in Washington she planned to visit Taiwan in December following an invitation by groups advocating independence for the island.
If Taiwan's government had granted Kadeer a visa, it would in all likelihood have infuriated Beijing, which says she is a "criminal" who orchestrated ethnic violence in her home region of Xinjiang in north-west China in July. Beijing is already angered by the screening this week in Taiwan's second-largest city Kaohsiung of a biopic about Kadeer, "The 10 Conditions of Love".
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