In Saudi Arabia, the hunt for Uyghur Muslims is open – Liberation

“We are in a police car with my daughter, we are being taken to Riyadh to be deported to China. Please save us,” begs Buheliqiemu Abula, before having his phone confiscated. On Wednesday evening, Buheliqiemu Abula and her 13-year-old daughter, Baibure Miremaiti, were brought to a bus to take them to the airport where they were checked in for a flight to Guangzhou. At the last minute, under pressure from a group of human rights NGOs, the United Nations and parliamentarians from democratic countries, the operation was stopped. Two men, Nurmemet Rozi, her ex-husband, and Hemdullah Abduweli, a friend of the latter, were also to be deported, but their fate remains unknown.

The only crime of these four people is to be from the Uyghur ethnic group, originally from the Xinjiang region (also called Eastern Turkestan) and to be practicing Muslims. According to information obtained by Freed, another attempt to put them on a plane could be attempted in the coming hours. Or a live kidnapping carried out by Beijing against nationals abroad.

In an extrajudicial internment camp

All four were born in China, and fled to Turkey to escape Beijing’s persecution of the Turkic peoples. “Since 2020, they have been in Saudi Arabia for religious reasons, with a residence permit. No one is aware of any complaints, charges or formal extradition proceedings made against them. …

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