{"id":859,"date":"2022-04-10T21:24:28","date_gmt":"2022-04-10T18:24:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uyghurmovement.com\/?p=859"},"modified":"2022-04-10T21:24:28","modified_gmt":"2022-04-10T18:24:28","slug":"saudi-arabia-imminent-deportation-of-uyghur-detainees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uyghurmovement.com\/?p=859","title":{"rendered":"Saudi Arabia: Imminent Deportation of Uyghur Detainees"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Saudi Arabia: Imminent Deportation of Uyghur Detainees<\/h1>\n

Two Men Face Forced Return to Persecution in China<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"201911MENA_SaudiArabia_Repression_main\"
Saudi Crown Prince and Defence Minister Mohammed bin Salman arrives to attend the first meeting of the defense ministers and officials of the 41-member Saudi-led Muslim counter-terrorism alliance in the capital Riyadh on November 26, 2017.\u00a0\u00a9 2017 Fayez Nureldine\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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(Beirut) \u2013\u00a0Saudi<\/a>\u00a0authorities are apparently preparing to deport two\u00a0Muslim\u00a0Uyghurs<\/a>\u00a0back to China, where they are at serious risk of arbitrary detention and torture, Human Rights Watch said today. Saudi authorities have held the men arbitrarily since November 2020 without charge or trial.<\/p>\n

An informed source told Human Rights Watch that on January 3, 2022, a Saudi official told one of the detainees, Nurmemet Rozi (Nuermaimaiti on his Chinese passport), 46, that he \u201cshould be mentally prepared to be deported to China in a few days.\u201d The Turkey-based daughter of the other man, Hemdullah Abduweli (Aimidoula Waili on his Chinese passport), 54, a religious scholar,\u00a0posted a video on social media<\/a>\u00a0in Arabic stating that her father and Rozi are at imminent risk of deportation, appealing for Saudi Arabia to allow them to return to Turkey where they were residents. The two men are currently held in al-Dhahban Mabahith (intelligence) prison north of Jeddah.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Saudi Arabia deports these two Uyghur men, it will be sending a clear message that it stands arm-in-arm with the Chinese government and its crimes against humanity targeting Turkic Muslims,\u201d said\u00a0Michael Page<\/a>, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. \u201cDeporting people to places where they would face arbitrary detention, torture, or worse, risks further tarnishing Saudi Arabia\u2019s global human rights image.\u201d<\/p>\n

In late 2020, Human Rights Watch said that the Saudi authorities should\u00a0immediately clarify the status<\/a>\u00a0of Abduweli and Rozi and disclose the basis of their detentions. Abduweli arrived in Saudi Arabia in February 2020 to perform a religious pilgrimage, a Uyghur activist told Human Rights Watch. He had been in hiding since he gave a speech to the Uyghur community there in which he encouraged Uyghurs and Muslims to pray about conditions in China\u2019s Xinjiang region and to \u201cfight back the Chinese invaders\u2026using weapons,\u201d said another source who spoke to Abduweli.<\/p>\n

In early November 2020, Abduweli spoke to\u00a0Middle East Eye, a London-based online news outlet, saying<\/a>\u00a0he feared that Chinese authorities had sent a request to Saudi Arabia to detain and deport him. Middle East Eye posted photos of Abduweli\u2019s Chinese passport, Turkish residency card, and Saudi visa information.<\/p>\n

Abduweli Ayup, a Uyghur activist in contact with Saudi Arabia\u2019s Uyghur community, said that he had previously documented five cases in which Saudi Arabia forcibly deported Uyghurs back to China in 2017 and 2018.<\/p>\n

Uyghurs are Turkic-speakers, most of whom are Muslims, who live in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China\u2019s northwest. The Chinese government has\u00a0long been hostile<\/a>\u00a0to many expressions of Uyghur identity and imposed wide-ranging controls \u2013 including religious restrictions \u2013 over daily life in Xinjiang.<\/p>\n

Since late 2016, the Chinese government has\u00a0dramatically escalated<\/a>\u00a0repression in Xinjiang as part of ostensible counterterrorism efforts, subjecting the region\u2019s 13 million Turkic Muslims to forced political indoctrination,\u00a0mass surveillance<\/a>, and severe movement restrictions. An estimated one million of them have been held in\u00a0\u201cpolitical education\u201d camps<\/a>. These abuses, committed in a widespread and systematic manner, amount to the\u00a0crimes against humanity<\/a>\u00a0of unlawful imprisonment; persecution; enforced disappearance; torture; murder; and inhumane acts such as forced labor and sexual violence, Human Rights Watch said.<\/p>\n

Much of this repression targets Uyghurs\u2019\u00a0religious practices<\/a>. Uyghurs are detained and prosecuted for studying the Quran, going on pilgrimages without state approval, wearing religious clothing, and what the authorities have called \u201cabnormal\u201d thoughts or behavior that express \u201cexcessive religious fervor.\u201d An estimated\u00a016,000 mosques in Xinjiang<\/a>, or 65 percent of the total, have been destroyed or damaged as a result of government policies since 2017.<\/p>\n

On a visit to China in February 2019, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country\u2019s de facto ruler, appeared to endorse Chinese government policies in Xinjiang. China\u2019s Xinhua official news\u00a0agency quoted Mohammed bin Salman stating<\/a>, \u201cWe respect and support China’s rights to take counter-terrorism and de-extremism measures to safeguard national security.\u201d Saudi Arabia\u00a0endorsed<\/a>\u00a0joint letters in support of China\u2019s policies in Xinjiang at the United Nations in 2019 and again in 2020.<\/p>\n

The Chinese government\u2019s record of arbitrary detention, torture, and enforced disappearance of Uyghurs, as well as the absence of judicial independence and due process, raises serious concerns that if deported to China, Abduweli and Rozi will be at grave risk of torture and other ill-treatment.<\/p>\n

Under the customary international law principle of nonrefoulement and as a party to the UN Convention against Torture, Saudi Arabia is obligated to ensure that no one in its custody is forcibly sent to a place where they would risk being subjected to persecution, torture, or other serious human rights violations.<\/p>\n

In recent years, there have been several incidents of Uyghurs being forcibly returned to China in violation of international law. In July 2017, Egypt detained 62 Uyghurs and\u00a0deported<\/a>\u00a0at least 12 to China. In August 2015, Thailand forcibly returned 220 Uyghurs to China. In December 2012, Malaysia deported six Uyghurs to China. In all cases, those returned appear to have been forcibly disappeared. Human Rights Watch has been unable to obtain any further information from Thai, Malaysian, or Chinese governments as to the deportees\u2019 whereabouts or well-being.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman\u2019s apparent endorsement of China\u2019s persecution of Uyghurs is bad enough, but his government should not play a direct role in it by deporting back Uyghur men to possible arbitrary detention and torture,\u201d Page said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Saudi Arabia: Imminent Deportation of Uyghur Detainees Two Men Face Forced Return to Persecution in China (Beirut) \u2013\u00a0Saudi\u00a0authorities are apparently preparing to deport two\u00a0Muslim\u00a0Uyghurs\u00a0back to China, where they are at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uyghurmovement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uyghurmovement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uyghurmovement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uyghurmovement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uyghurmovement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=859"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uyghurmovement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":860,"href":"https:\/\/www.uyghurmovement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859\/revisions\/860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uyghurmovement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uyghurmovement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uyghurmovement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}