But her colleagues at the school have been very kind to her. "I feel like living in a big family of different ethnic people," she said.

She recalled a colleague who called her after the riot to make sure she was fine. "He asked me 'how's it going? Is everything ok?' At that moment, I was moved," she said.

Students at the school where Roxingul work are of Han, Uygur, Kazakh, Hui and many other ethnic groups. "Teachers and students all get along very well."

Roxingul said her biggest wish was that ethnic harmony in Xinjiang would be "strong enough to withstand any separatists' vicious attempts."

Kadeer's six children were all at young age when she got divorced and left them with their father. The youngest of them, Alim, was only eight months old.

Now 33, he still cannot get over the abandonment .

"My memories about my mother were blank before the age of 17," he said. "I cannot understand why she did this to me."

After graduating from a medical school in 1999, he began to run his mother's company, which was later under investigation of tax evasion.

"When the company was investigated, my mother called me from abroad and told me that I could go to the street to demonstrate and set myself on fire with gasoline so as to threaten the government," Alim recalled. "I did not say a word and hang up the phone."

He did not follow her words. He said, "I love my children. They need me. So I didn't do that and I'll never do that." Badly hurt, he said he couldn't understand why a mother could teach her son to do that.

Alim was put in jail in 2007 for evading tax of more than 7 million yuan (1.02 million U.S. dollars).

"It was when my mother ran the company that the company evaded taxes," he said. "My stepfather told her to do so."

Alim learnt about the July 5 riot through media reports.

"She might not know how many people died, how many were injured and how badly the city was affected," he said. "What should we do as her children?"

He hoped she could think about the feeling of her people at home and do something good for the country.

"Our family has not been together for a long time. If she continues to do this, there will be no chance of a reunion," Alim said.

Memet, Rebiya's younger brother, might remember the phone call from Kadeer in the rest of his life.

She called him at 11:40 a.m. on July 5, about six hours before the deadly riot.

"She told me something big would happen in Urumqi," Memet said. "From what she said on the phone, she should know about this accident beforehand. If she made it happen, she will be punished no matter where she is."

That night, Memet witnessed the "something big".

"Looking down from my window, I saw the rioters burning vehicles while looting," he said. "They also beat and killed innocent people."

During the interview, Memet said he was "very angry" and "very upset" as he watched the violence.

"I think the violence was wrong," he said.

Memet, who used to live and do business with Kadeer, said he would scold her if she called after the violence.

"What sin has the public committed? What wrong have the cars done? Is it good that you've made such a mess? You promised us and the government that you wouldn't do something like this. Why don't you keep your promise?" Memet said.

Memet said the lives of his children, who work or do business in Urumqi, had been affected by the riot.

"It caused heavy losses not just to us, but to many people in Xinjiang and other regions of the country," he said.

He hoped life could "go back to what it used to be like" with ethnic harmony.

(Xinhua News Agency August 4, 2009)