The world’s leading activist for China’s Muslim minority group has urged Australia not to let its economic relationship with Beijing get in the way of speaking out against the group’s repression.

Exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer, who has been compared to Tibet’s Dalai Lama, spoke after a United States diplomat told a watershed congressional hearing in Washington that the police state imposed on the ethnic minority in China’s north-west was among the worst cases of repression now happening in the world.

Uighur Leader Rebiya Kadeer Credit:Glen McCurtayne

Ms Kadeer, 71, told Fairfax Media that international concern about her people was growing - as shown by the Washington hearing chaired by top Republican and past presidential candidate Marco Rubio, who called for Washington to consider applying sanctions to Chinese officials.

“Marco Rubio said today that a lot of countries across the world are fearful of losing their economic ties with China, so they are silent against the atrocities that are occurring against the Uighur people,” Ms Kadeer said. “One of those governments is obviously Australia.”