Last month, we reported on July 27 that Turkish authorities deported a Uighur woman (Zinnetgul Tursun) and her two little children. The two kids are respectively 4 years old and 18 months old. After reporting the incident by Uighur Times and multiple other news media outlets, Turkish officials had denied the allegations and claimed that these reports were not true. As reported by the Daily Sabah news media on July 29, a senior official at the Directorate General of Migration Management in Turkey said: “We did not send back any Uighurs to China and will not do so.”
According to the new phone interview on Aug. 13 by the Radio Free Asia (RFA) Uyghur language service, Zinnetgul’s mother (Roshengul Yasin) who is still living in Suydong Town near the city of Ghulja in Xinjiang, China (aka occupied East Turkistan) has confirmed the extradition of her daughter Zinnetgul by the Chinese authorities. Roshengul Yasin said that her daughter was returned and taken to an unknown detention facility by the local authorities. Also, the two children of Zinnetgul were given to their grandmother (i.e. Roshengul Yasin) to take care.
Zinnetgul’s sister Jennetgul Tursun who is currently living in Saudi Arabia told the RFA Uyghur service that in addition to her sister Zinnetgul, there are more than 10 direct family members and relatives back home in Suydong Town, Ghulja has been taken by the Chinese authorities.
It is unclear if the deportation of Zinnetgul Tursun and several other Uighurs from Turkey to Tajikstan and subsequently to China was an isolated incident carried out by individual local Turkish immigration officials or if there is a secret agreement between China and Turkey related to secret deportation of Uighurs to China. Under the current situation, it is clear that those who are deported will face extremely severe punishment and human rights violations by the Chinese authorities in Xinjiang, where more than 3 million innocent Uighurs sent to concentration camps.
The Bloomberg has reported on Aug. 9 that China’s central bank transferred $1 billion worth of funds to Turkey in June. It is well known that Turkey’s economy has not been doing great since the currency and debt crisis in 2018. No matter what, this should never be an excuse for Turkey to abandon and handover the Uighurs into brutal dictators’ hands in China. Given the historical ties between Uighurs and Turks, Turkey should be the last country Uighurs are afraid of being deported to China where they end up disappeared or sent to one of the vast numbers of concentration camps. We humbly ask the Turkish government and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Uighur people who are under existential threat from the communist Chinese regime at this historical moment deserve a thorough investigation and solid explanation. Most importantly, no Uighurs should be deported to China from Turkey ever again.
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