Uighurs live in fear of being picked up and returned to China, which has close ties with Cambodia, according to Uighur groups.
Sunday, 06 December 2009
(Posted by CAAI News Media)
A group of Uighurs who have fled China are seeking asylum through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, an overseas activist group said, adding that other would-be refugees had been captured while fleeing China after ethnic protests in their homeland in July.
Two of the 22 Uighurs who sought asylum through the UNHCR offices in Phnom Penh say they witnessed security forces killing and beating Uighur demonstrators in the far western city of Urumqi on July 5, the Uighur American Association said.
On that day, demonstrations in Urumqi by Uighurs protesting fatal attacks on Uighur workers in South China turned into a violent protest in which 197 people died. Han Chinese crowds launched revenge attacks against Uighur neighbourhoods two days later.
On Friday, a court in Urumqi condemned to death a Uighur man and woman on charges of murder during the July 5 riot, as well as a Han Chinese man for killing three people during the counter-attacks two days later, bringing to 17 the number of people sentenced to death after the riots.
In addition to the 22 Uighurs who made it to Phnom Penh, the exile group said two others were stopped by police when trying to cross from Vietnam to Cambodia. It said 31 Uighurs were detained in central and southern China for trying to flee or helping others to do so, while another five who tried to enter Vietnam in October are unaccounted for.
"Risking deportation"
Refugees who flee China face a dangerous crossing over the mountainous borders, and risk repatriation while they are still in neighbouring countries.
"China has a very big influence in Cambodia. So their life is in risk, I would say," said Ilshat Hassan, the U.S.-based director of interior affairs for the World Uyghur Congress.
Hassan said the group is the first large one to leave China after the riots. He said they witnessed the violence in the region and took photos.
Cambodian government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said the government will consider "carefully" any repatriation request from China. He said Cambodia has the right to deny such a request if the people are considered political asylum seekers.
"But if they are purely criminal people and there is a request, we may deport them back," he said.
In October an ethnic Mongolian school principal, Batzangaa, was abruptly brought back to China by Chinese police while he and his family were appealing the UNHCR's initial rejection of their refugee application in Ulan Bator. He is still in detention.
Canadian diplomats have been unable despite repeated protests to get consular access to Huseyin Celil, a Uighur refugee with Canadian citizenship deported back to China while visiting relatives in Uzbekistan. He has been jailed in China since 2006.
China changed name of East Turkistan and named it Xinjiang in 1955.
Many Uighurs resent Han Chinese rule, complaining they're marginalised economically and politically in their own land, while having to tolerate a rising influx of Han Chinese migrants.
Meanwhile, human rights groups accuse Beijing of using claims of "terrorism" as an excuse to crack down on peaceful pro-independence sentiment and expressions of Uighur identity.
East Turkistan, that has 8 million Uighurs, borders Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, has abundant oil reserves and is China's largest natural gas-producing region.
Agencies
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