Uygurs lost everything after leaving home
Print Edition
WHEN 109 Uygurs were sent back to China from Thailand last month, several of them attacked police as they were being put on a flight to Xinjiang, thinking they were facing execution on their return, the government in the northwest China region said yesterday.
It said, according to a report in Xinjing Daily, that rumors had spread among the group awaiting deportation, including one that they would be put to death.
“Certain people used this to stir up some of those being deported to attack Thai and Chinese police as they were boarding,” the newspaper quoted the government.
One man, who was named in the report as Kudusi Tuohutiyusufu, suffered head injuries while he was being “subdued” at the airport on July 9, but it said his mental state had “relaxed” on his return.
“The attitude of the police toward us is very good. They took me to see the doctor and now my wound is much better,” the report quoted him as saying.
Most members of the group are being detained in the regional capital of Urumqi, the government said.
“Life is quite good after returning,” said a woman called Guliniyazi Shawuti. “It’s completely different from what I heard would happen when I was abroad.”
The Uygurs are now the subject of a police investigation in Urumqi, which will determine their roles in what is being regarded as a human trafficking case, according to the newspaper report.
The group includes people with connections to terrorist organization the East Turkistan Islamic Movement and other anti-China forces, police officer Gao Zhaoyi told the newspaper.
These organizations were trying to take Uygurs to Turkey, from where they would be sent to Syria to join terrorist organizations and carry out “jihad,” or holy war, he said.
Any traffickers will be punished, while those who may have been tricked into going along with their plans would be sent back to their hometowns for “re-education,” Chen Zhuangwei, deputy director of Xinjiang’s police department, told the newspaper.
Some of the suspects said they had been persuaded by “friends” to travel to Syria with the promise of a place in heaven if they took part in jihad.
They said they sold their belongings and used counterfeit passports to go to various Southeast Asian countries, where they were told that someone would help them get into Turkey and then to Syria.
However, after they left China, they were continually asked for money and they had nothing left when they returned to China.
Abdul Niaz Yasin, 43, said he used to earn more than 100,000 yuan (US$16,346) a year from farming with his wife and daughter.
However, on the advice of a friend named Mahmud, he sold everything and left China with his family. He handed 30,000 yuan to brokers at the border and paid 9,000 yuan in Vietnam and 3,600 yuan in Cambodia.
Another man, Muhamat Imin, said he paid brokers 70,000 yuan, which his father had given him to start up a business, only to end up in a forest in Thailand.
“My father must be disappointed with me because I did not listen to him when he asked me to stay in China,” he said.
“Now, he does not even allow my mother to speak to me on the phone.”
Thai police detained the group in March last year for illegal entry. When their nationalities were revealed — some had been told to claim they were Turkish — they were repatriated to China.
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