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sudanesa
is married with five children she hasn't
seen her husband osman
in nearly two years she is one of many
uyghur people from
xinjiang province in china who live in
exile
she says she cannot go home as she fears
being detained
in one of the notorious re-education
camps there
a fate already befalling her husband
osman
sudanese has no solid information about
where her husband osman is
but we've learned he's just one of a
number of cases of apparent
deportations of weaker muslims in saudi
arabia
and other countries in the middle east
back to china
yes
osman was first detained for three
months in a crackdown on uyga people in
china
in 2014 it was then that china began its
strike hard on terrorism campaign
following a series of violent events in
xinjiang province
critics say the campaign has
indiscriminately abused the rights of
weaker people in their homeland
on the pretext of fighting terrorism
is
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fearing further detention osman and
sudanese sought refuge in turkey
and began to move their children over
from china
business
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in 2018 osman visited saudi arabia to
make an armorer pilgrimage
but two days before travelling back he
discovered he was being hunted by saudi
police
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my
since 2009 china has launched a people's
war on terror in xinjiang
to tackle so-called religious extremism
the government began to suppress
uighur identity and human rights
claiming that violent
incidents like the bombing of a train
station in urumqi in 2014
was evidence of widespread islamist
separatism
today it's believed over a million
ethnic uighurs and other muslim groups
are detained in camps across the region
effectively prisons that the chinese
state defines as re-education camps they
say
tackle terrorism and alleviate poverty
in the region
former detainees allege that those
inside have faced torture if they refuse
to renounce their language
and religion a claim which china denies
human rights organizations have called
the pursuit of uyghurs abroad a major
concern
very few of the people to whom we've
spoken
outside the country who've tried to
contact
family members who were forcibly
returned or who
returned under duress uh are able to
have
much contact and we now know people who
have gone
two and three and four and in some cases
more years
with no information about what's
happened to their family members which
is a terrifying phenomenon
and it's a very effective way of
controlling people inside and outside
the country
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osman's deportation from saudi arabia
has never been reported before
we have discovered even more cases of
weakest targeted
in this most sacred of places for
muslims
before the coronavirus outbreak saudi
arabia welcomed over 2 million pilgrims
each year
undertaking the hajj and amura
pilgrimages are religious duties for
muslims
bringing worshippers from around the
world to islam's most holy sites
ismail not his real name was a uyghur
student who left from saudi
after feeling that he and his family
were in danger
my mom wanted me to call her then i
called her and
she said the police
visited her and want me to come back
immediately in three days
she said they just want us to study
two weeks in kashgar in my hometown
but my mother her last word
to me was never called me again
so we lost our parents
and we lost contact with them we all the
students we were
really really terrified
i i realized that i cannot go back
anymore
i cried when i was praying i cried
i lost my parents i lost my brothers
i couldn't stop my tears at the time
i asked help from our school
from our teachers can you
protect us if the saudi government wants
us to go back to china my teachers told
me
they cannot protect us they are helpless
is that
so i decided to leave from saudi arabia
in our school no one was involved in
kind of
extremes activism or any kind of
terrorist actions never ever
these china cables leaked last year
contain chinese government instructions
on how they run internment camps and
enforce mass surveillance in xinjiang
one directive identifies nearly 6 000
uighurs who are abroad
or have papers to travel for
surveillance by security officials
the order is to track those for whom
suspected terrorism cannot be ruled out
individuals who should be arrested the
moment they cross the border
and placed into concentrated education
and
training china rejected the cables
as fake news for more than a year i've
been speaking with wigan muslims who've
identified a pattern of weakest in the
middle east
who they say have been targeted by local
authorities in collaboration with the
chinese government
in saudi arabia egypt the uae and other
countries we've heard stories of weaker
students and pilgrims
arrested and deported they say they've
committed no crimes
whether in those countries or back in
china
i have been in saudi arabia and i
stayed there 15 days and studied wigar
community
and i have visited the egypt
and i stayed there also a week and study
weaver community
i haven't seen anything extreme but
i have seen that they are afraid of me
because i have done human rights
activity in china
abdul wali ayub is a human rights
activist who has been documenting the
uyghur muslims who've been targeted
throughout the middle east
depend on my study five vigor
deported to china from saudi arabia and
among them
i know three of them i know personally i
i have their
id card i have their like a residence
permit and i have
a copy of their passport
abdulwelly has also found that chinese
authorities frequently put pressure on
families back home
in order to get people to return to
china hundreds of whom are then
imprisoned
because the local authority asked them
to come back
without that their parents under
pressure and without the their parents
sent to
radiation camp concentration camp from
saudi arabia they have
67 and from
egypt and i confirmed
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762
it's very hard to confirm because people
afraid
people afraid to talk so why are these
muslim-led countries
apparently collaborating in china's
crackdown on the weaker people
in february of last year crown prince
mohammed bin salman made a visit to his
country's biggest trading partner
china there he signed 28 billion dollars
worth of agreements
including a 10 billion deal to build an
oil refinery complex in china
during the trip bin salman was reported
by chinese state media to have told his
hosts
china has the right to carry out
anti-terrorism
and de-extremism work for its national
security
then in july 50 nations defended china's
policy in xinjiang
in a letter that claimed people there
now enjoy a stronger sense of happiness
fulfillment and security
here the saudi ambassador to the u.n
defend signing the letter
flanked by diplomats from the uae
bahrain
yemen and the arab league once again
nobody
can be more concerned about the status
of muslims anywhere in the world than
saudi arabia
and these countries out here what we
have said in that letter is that we
support
the developmental policies of china that
have lifted
people out of poverty there is a sort of
sense of perhaps uh association
you know that that exists between
authoritarian countries that are
very frightened of of separatist
movements and of
of terrorism and of uh
people that actually they see as threats
to political stability
um so i think there is the economic
relationship and the oil dependency
is important but it's not the only thing
that matters i think there is
kind of a political angst there
there is every likelihood that some
weakers living outside of china may be
preparing violent or illegal resistance
to the chinese government
in the course of our research newsnight
has spoken to some who do call
for active resistance but critics
believe many innocents are being caught
up too
beijing has shamelessly exploited
fears of terrorism and islamophobia
worldwide to justify its policies in
xinjiang and
to return figures to china at this point
in time
is really to violate one of the most
fundamental tenets of international
human rights law which is not to send
people back
to a place where they have a
well-founded fear of persecution
critics say that xinjiang itself now
represents an extensive internment camp
for the 11 million uyga people living
there
the question for those seeking refuge
outside of china is
will they ever be able to see their
homeland or their families again
and will there ever be a safe haven for
them abroad