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Uyghurs Held in Tajikistan |
RFA
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 2011-01-24
Three Uyghur businessmen may face extradition to China
Three Uyghur businessmen wi.th Turkish citizenship have
been detained by authorities in Tajikistan, sparking
fears that the men may have been held due to pressure
from China, according to Uyghur groups.
They claimed that on Jan. 8, security forces in
Tajikistan’s capital Dushanbe first picked up Ablimit
Dawatoglu, whose brother was executed years ago by
authorities in China’s northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Region.
The following day, Kamiljan Omeroglu and Ehmet Rashidi
were held when they went to the police department in
Dushanbe to inquire about Dawatoglu.
The Turkish embassy in Dushanbe has not been able to
reach the three men and their families have not received
any information about their detentions.
Tajik officials are tight-lipped about the case and the
circumstances that provoked the detentions remain
unclear.
The three had left the Xinjiang region within the past
ten years, before receiving Turkish citizenship. They
were in Tajikistan on business at the time of their
arrests.
Tajikistan’s neighbors Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and
Uzbekistan have previously deported Uyghurs to China,
including an ethnic Uyghur with Canadian citizenship.
Many of those sent back to China have faced prison
sentences or execution on charges of "splittism" and
"separatism."
Arrests unconfirmed by Tajikistan
Turkish officials have not received a response from
Tajikistan to inquiries about the arrests.
Mustafa Turkel Yilmaz, press officer for the Turkish
embassy in Dushanbe told RFA on Jan. 21, “We were
informed of the issue on Jan. 9 by a civil society group
in Turkey. We then conveyed a request to Tajikistan
Foreign Ministry to confirm the arrest of our three
citizens, but unfortunately, although more than ten days
have passed we have not gotten any answer and we are
still trying to get an answer from the ministry.”
According to him, Turkish foreign ministry officials in
Ankara also contacted the Tajik embassy in Ankara,
Turkey to confirm the issue, but the result was same.
“We still are expecting an answer from Tajik officials.
We do not wish to comment about the issue unless we get
an official response from the ministry,” he said.
A staff member at the Tajik embassy in Ankara, Turkey
refused to comment on the issue.
Turkish citizens
The three men had left the Uyghur region of China in the
past decade. Two of them had received Turkish
citizenship over the last three years while the third
received it four months ago.
The three men were not business partners but frequently
traveled between Turkey and Tajikistan together for
business.
Ablimit Dawatoglu and Ehmet Reshidi own stores in
Dushanbe where they sold Chinese goods, including cloth.
They are married to women with Tajik citizenship.
Ablimit Dawatoglu had a brother who was executed in the
1990s in Hotan, in the Uyghur region of China, on
charges of "splittism." Because of this family
background, he was under the scrutiny of Chinese state
security and left China a few years after his brother’s
execution, Uyghur groups said.
Pressure from China?
“We strongly believe that the three were arrested at
China’s request,” said Hidayitulla Oghuzhan, spokesman
for the East Turkistan Education and Solidarity
Association, a Uyghur organization based in Turkey.
“Turkish officials still have not been able to have
access to the three, and based on this situation and a
lot of experience we have had, we are assuming that the
three have already been deported to China or their
extradition is under way,” he said.
“We call on the international community to prevent
another tragedy like Huseyin Jelil’s from occurring
again,” he said, referring to an Uyghur of Canadian
citizenship who was arrested in Uzbekistan and
extradited to China in 2006. He is currently serving a
life sentence in Liudawan Jail in Urumqi, the capital of
the Xinjiang region.
Chinese authorities blame overseas Uyghur separatists
for orchestrating violence in China in recent years,
including the ethnic unrest that broke out in Urumqi in
July 2009.
Last year, Cambodia deported to China 20 Uyghurs seeking
asylum from persecution related to that unrest. Laos
also returned seven asylum-seekers to China in December.
Some Uyghur groups claim there have been many more
arrests of Uyghurs in Central Asian states following
pressure from Beijing but they are holding back details.
“There are a certain number of Uyghur refugees detained
in other Central Asian countries but because of Chinese
demands we have not publicized [these cases] yet,
because we are still expecting a correct solution [to be
reached] between the countries and UNHCR officials,”
said Rebiya Kadeer, president of the World Uyghur
Congress.
Last week, Tajikistan agreed to give away around 1,000
square kilometers (386 square miles) of its land to
China in a bid to end a land dispute dating back a
century.
According to the East Turkistan Education and Solidarity
Association in Istanbul, Uyghurs in Turkey plan to hold
a protest in support of the three men on Tuesday in
front of the Tajik embassy in Ankara.
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| Reported by Shohret Hoshur for RFA’s
Uyghur service. Translated by Dolkun Kamberi. Written in
English by Richard Finney. |
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