Published: December 17, 2009
BEIJING — The Chinese Foreign Ministry has hinted that it is seeking or will seek the return of 22 Uighurs who fled to Cambodia after the eruption of deadly ethnic riots in July in western China and a subsequent government crackdown.
The Uighurs are a Turkic-speaking ethnic minority group concentrated in western China whose members often say the Chinese government, dominated by ethnic Han, discriminates against them. The 22 Uighurs in Cambodia entered the country about a month ago with the aid of an underground network of Christian missionaries in China that usually helps North Koreans reach nations where they can seek refugee status.
The Uighurs made their way to the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, where they applied for refugee status at a United Nations refugee office.
This week, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said at a news conference that the Uighurs were suspected of criminal activities and that the “relevant departments” were investigating them. She said at the news conference and in a written statement sent to The New York Times on Thursday that criminals should not be allowed to take advantage of the United Nations’ refugee system.
“China’s stance is very clear: the international refugee protection system shouldn’t become a shelter where criminals stay to escape legal punishment,” she said.
The Foreign Ministry sent the statement in response to a question from a reporter asking whether Chinese officials had contacted the Cambodian government about the Uighurs. The Phnom Penh Post, an English-language newspaper, reported Tuesday that the Chinese Embassy had sent a note to the Cambodian government in early December about the Uighurs.
Koy Kuong, a Cambodian Foreign Ministry spokesman, said he had no additional details about the note, the newspaper reported.
This week, Amnesty International sent a letter to Sar Kheng, deputy prime minister and interior minister of Cambodia, saying that Cambodia was bound by the terms of a 1951 convention related to refugees that prohibited signatory countries from forcibly returning refugees to nations where they could face torture or other ill treatment.
“Since September 2001, Amnesty International has documented cases in which Uighur asylum seekers who were forcibly returned to China were detained, reportedly tortured and in some cases sentenced to death and executed,” Sam Zarifi, Asia-Pacific director of Amnesty International, wrote in the open letter.
Three of the Uighurs who made it to Cambodia are children. Two Uighurs were detained in Vietnam en route to Cambodia, and five others who fled China have disappeared, according to Uighur advocacy groups in the West.
The United States has declined to send Uighurs detained in Guantánamo Bay back to China and has also refused to grant them refugee status. Some of them have ended up in Albania, Palau and Bermuda.
The Uighurs in Cambodia fled their homeland after the deadliest ethnic rioting in decades in China. Uighurs clashed on July 5 with riot police officers sent to put down a protest in Urumqi, the capital of the western region of Xinjiang, and then went on a rampage through neighborhoods, killing scores of people. In all, at least 197 people were killed, most of them ethnic Han, the Chinese government said; in the next few days, vengeance-seeking Han attacked Uighurs across the city.
The government detained hundreds of Uighurs, and at least 43 Uighur men have disappeared, according to Human Rights Watch. The Xinjiang government has executed several people for involvement in the rioting.
Zhang Jing contributed research.
The Uighurs are a Turkic-speaking ethnic minority group concentrated in western China whose members often say the Chinese government, dominated by ethnic Han, discriminates against them. The 22 Uighurs in Cambodia entered the country about a month ago with the aid of an underground network of Christian missionaries in China that usually helps North Koreans reach nations where they can seek refugee status.
The Uighurs made their way to the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, where they applied for refugee status at a United Nations refugee office.
This week, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said at a news conference that the Uighurs were suspected of criminal activities and that the “relevant departments” were investigating them. She said at the news conference and in a written statement sent to The New York Times on Thursday that criminals should not be allowed to take advantage of the United Nations’ refugee system.
“China’s stance is very clear: the international refugee protection system shouldn’t become a shelter where criminals stay to escape legal punishment,” she said.
The Foreign Ministry sent the statement in response to a question from a reporter asking whether Chinese officials had contacted the Cambodian government about the Uighurs. The Phnom Penh Post, an English-language newspaper, reported Tuesday that the Chinese Embassy had sent a note to the Cambodian government in early December about the Uighurs.
Koy Kuong, a Cambodian Foreign Ministry spokesman, said he had no additional details about the note, the newspaper reported.
This week, Amnesty International sent a letter to Sar Kheng, deputy prime minister and interior minister of Cambodia, saying that Cambodia was bound by the terms of a 1951 convention related to refugees that prohibited signatory countries from forcibly returning refugees to nations where they could face torture or other ill treatment.
“Since September 2001, Amnesty International has documented cases in which Uighur asylum seekers who were forcibly returned to China were detained, reportedly tortured and in some cases sentenced to death and executed,” Sam Zarifi, Asia-Pacific director of Amnesty International, wrote in the open letter.
Three of the Uighurs who made it to Cambodia are children. Two Uighurs were detained in Vietnam en route to Cambodia, and five others who fled China have disappeared, according to Uighur advocacy groups in the West.
The United States has declined to send Uighurs detained in Guantánamo Bay back to China and has also refused to grant them refugee status. Some of them have ended up in Albania, Palau and Bermuda.
The Uighurs in Cambodia fled their homeland after the deadliest ethnic rioting in decades in China. Uighurs clashed on July 5 with riot police officers sent to put down a protest in Urumqi, the capital of the western region of Xinjiang, and then went on a rampage through neighborhoods, killing scores of people. In all, at least 197 people were killed, most of them ethnic Han, the Chinese government said; in the next few days, vengeance-seeking Han attacked Uighurs across the city.
The government detained hundreds of Uighurs, and at least 43 Uighur men have disappeared, according to Human Rights Watch. The Xinjiang government has executed several people for involvement in the rioting.
Zhang Jing contributed research.
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