Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs and the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) has released a new report revealing the extent of China’s transnational repression of Uyghurs. ‘China’s Transnational Repression of Uyghurs: No Space Left to Run’ examines cases compiled in the Oxus Society’s Chinese Transnational Repression of Uyghurs Database. As a result of the Chinese government’s transnational repression, Uyghurs around the world are targeted by state control beyond Chinese borders.
UHRP Executive Director Omer Kanat said, ‘Uyghurs abroad know well the extent of China’s repression. They have been victimized for decades. The Chinese government has repressed virtually every Uyghur living outside East Turkistan, from phone calls from the police and attempts to block international travel to even more serious dangers like detention, arrest, and deportation’.
Bradley Jardine, director of research at the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs, said, ‘Chinese terror attacks against the Uyghur diaspora have escalated dramatically since 2017 as policies in the Uyghur Region have grown increasingly repressive. Xinjiang’s technologically advanced surveillance state has become a truly global problem that crosses international borders, undermining human rights wherever it goes’.
China’s government has reached 28 countries around the world, according to the report. An analysis of 1,546 serious human rights violations abroad recorded from 1997 through March 2021 provides insight into the scope and evolution of China’s long-standing efforts to oppress and control Uyghurs abroad. The Middle East and North Africa, with 647 cases, and South Asia, with 665 cases, are the countries most complicit in China’s persecution of the Uyghurs. There are 1,151 cases of Uyghurs being detained in their host countries, and 395 cases of Uyghurs being deported, extradited or rendered back to China.
The number of unreported cases and cases of less severe human rights violations would undoubtedly significantly increase these figures. Using exclusively publicly reported and validated instances of repression, the Oxus Society database represents just the tip of the iceberg. ‘Considering the pervasive danger Uyghurs face, it is imperative that the U.S. Congress pass the Uyghur Human Rights Protection Act, and that other governments provide safe resettlement for Uyghur refugees at risk,’ Kanat said.
As a result of China’s massive expansion of mass surveillance in East Turkistan, which began in 2016, its transnational repression of Uyghurs has accelerated dramatically, showing a correlation between repression at home and abroad. From 1997 to 2007, at least 89 Uyghurs, primarily from South and Central Asia, were detained or deported to China. From 2008 to 2013, at least 130 Uyghurs in 15 countries suffered abuse. Over the past few years, 1,327 individuals have been detained or rendered in 20 different countries.
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Uyghurs need to be protected by host countries by combating China’s transnational repression, providing special refugee and emigration quotas, and refusing to extradite Uyghurs by contradicting international human rights treaties and norms. The international community and host countries must stop complicity in transnational repression, including restricting the networks of enablers and the export of technologies used to track and control Uyghurs and other vulnerable groups
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