New report documents China’s transnational repression of Uyghurs in Pakistan, Afghanistan

Washington [US], August 14 (ANI): A US-based research and advocacy group has released a new report documenting the complicity of Pakistan and Afghanistan in China’s transnational repression of Uyghurs.

A report by Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) and the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs (Oxus), discerns different methods used by the Chinese government against Uyghur communities in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In a report titled, ‘Nets Cast from the Earth to the Sky: China’s Hunt for Pakistan’s Uyghurs’, researchers gathered cases of China’s transnational repression from interviews with Uyghur activists and refugees in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Turkey, in addition to government documents and human rights reports.

UHRP Executive Director Omer Kanat said Pakistan and Afghanistan are becoming Chinese client states. “At the behest of the Chinese authorities, Islamabad and Kabul are engaged in the harassment, detention, and deportation of vulnerable Uyghurs. Some of the targeted Uyghurs have been tortured and executed in China, while others have experienced the breakup of their families and heavy-handed surveillance of their communities. China’s economic largesse can buy all sorts of complicity in violence against Uyghurs.”

“It is urgent that the international community recognise that Imran Khan has not only been silent on the plight of the Uyghurs, but that his government has been fully complicit in China’s crackdown,” said Bradley Jardine, Director of Research at the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs. “As the US prepares to leave Afghanistan, Uyghur Afghan citizens and long-term residents alike face the threat of increased persecution and even extradition to China under the leadership of the Pakistan-backed Taliban movement.”

The report draws from China’s Transnational Repression of Uyghurs Dataset, a joint project by the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs and the UHRP published in June this year. The report goes on to recommend concerned governments to increase quotas for the resettlement of Uyghur refugees. Further, the United Nations should investigate allegations against the UNHCR office in Pakistan, given the alarming testimony that Uyghur refugees are being denied asylum services by the UNHCR office in Islamabad, the report added. (ANI)