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Uighurs in Australia are disappointed by ‘missing’ relatives in China Uyghur news

Melbourne, Australia – Yusuf Hussein is an Australian Uighur citizen living in the small town of Adelaide.

He and his five children talked to old parents every week, but since 2017 he has not been able to contact them.

“Suddenly, [they] he disappeared and none of them answered my phone, ”Hussein told Al Jazeera.

“They didn’t give me a message at all. I tried to send a message. None of them responded. “

A recent report by Human Rights Watch accuses the Chinese government of “crimes against humanity”Xinjiang in the western region of the Uighur region against most Muslims.

Including imprisonment, forced labor, sexual violence, torture, murder and compulsory disappearance.

Hussein believed that his 85-year-old father had taken his mother and siblings to what he described as a “concentration camp.” The United Nations says there could be as many as a million Uyghurs.

The Chinese government refers to these centers as “educational” camps that “offer”vocational skills training“.

Alim Osman, president of the Victorian Uighur Association, said in a recent parliamentary study that about 5,000 Uighurs live in Australia, about 1,500 of them in Adelaide, a city with a population of 1.3 million on the south coast.

A relative of Yusuf Hussein in Xinjiang province has been unable to contact him since 2017 [Courtesy of Yusuf Hussein]

Many Uyghurs living in Australia have similar stories about the arrest or disappearance of loved ones.

‘No one can answer us’

Marhaba Yakub Salay, 33, like Hussein, is also an Australian Uighur citizen living in Adelaide after moving to the country in 2011.

Sister Mayila Yakufu is also currently being held in Xinjiang for the second time.

After Yakufu was first released in 2017 after entering for the first time in 10 months, Salay spoke on the phone for about 10 minutes.

During the conversation, Yakufu did not say where he was.

“I was trying to ask – where have you been in the last 10 months?” Salay told Al Jazeera.

“He didn’t say anything, but he said,‘ Don’t worry about us – the Chinese Communist Party [is] very well cared for. ‘

Salay believed that his sister was not calling from home, but from another place under government supervision.

It was the last time they spoke and in May 2019 Yakufu was arrested again.

According to an email from the Australian Foreign Ministry (DFAT) that saw Al Jazeera, Salay’s sister was arrested “on charges of funding terrorist activities”.

Salay explained that the charge is money transferred by the sisters to their parents, who also live in Adelaide.

That money, Salay told Al Jazeera, was not for terrorism, but for the purchase of a home.

“We have all the evidence here,” Salay said. “The evidence is black-and-white – but the Chinese government still accuses my sister of advocating for terrorism abroad.”

Salay believed the charges were invented by the Chinese government with the aim of arresting his Uyghur sister, stating that his sister was probably “in a regular prison rather than a re-education camp” via the DFAT email address.

Almas Nizanidin, also a loved one, an Australian citizen of Uighur, “disappeared”.

In 2017, his now 29-year-old wife, Buzainafu Abudourexiti, was sentenced to seven years in prison for saying “no charges” and “no evidence”.

Nizanidin intended to return to China to help his wife emigrate to Australia, where he has lived since 2009, but before that he was interned and does not know where he was.

“[The Chinese authorities] he won’t tell me anything. They tell us ‘this is a high-ranking order’, ”he told Al Jazeera.

“I’ve been everywhere [in China] and no one can answer me. “

Mayila Yakufu, 44, was arrested on charges of financing terrorism after sending money to buy a house to parents living in Adelaide, Australia [Courtesy of Marhaba Yakub Salay]

Nizanidin said his mother – also a 55-year-old high school math teacher – had been arrested and sent to a detention center for more than two years.

He was finally released last year, but since Nizanidin said he had spoken to his mother on the phone since then, he would not say anything about his experience.

“He’s shocked, he’s scared. It doesn’t mean anything, ”he said.

“He said to me,‘ Shut up, shut up. Do your business, don’t say anything against the Chinese government. ”

Hussein, Salay and Nizanidin told Al Jazeera that the Australian federal government has provided support for investigations into what happened to his loved ones.

In an exceptional case, the Australian was finally able to bring in the wife of another Uyghur man, Saddam Abdusalam. back home December 2020. Had tireless campaign to reunite his family.

However, Nizanidin said the Australian government is being cautious about the issue of Uyghur disappearances and arrests due to its close trade economic relationship with China.

It’s a feeling shared by Salay.

“I know they talk about money sometimes. Money has to be clean, right? “he told Al Jazeera.

Commercial power

China is Australia’s largest trading partner, with 168 billion Australian dollars ($ 128.6 billion) in exports in 2019-2020, equivalent to a third of Australia’s global trade.

Recently, this trade relationship has become increasingly serious, with Australia’s request to investigate the origin of coronavirus in China and allegations of forced labor by Chinese companies in Xinjiang being examined by Australian trade agreements.

In late 2020, a report emerged that the Victorian government (Australia’s second most populous state) was in contact with a Chinese railway company linked to forced labor in Uyghur.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) report, called Uyghurs For Sale, identified 82 foreign and Chinese companies “potentially directly or indirectly through abusive job transfer programs that benefit the use of Uyghur workers outside Xinjiang in 2019”.

Among the companies identified in the report is CRRC, which told ASPI that it is part of a $ 2 billion ($ 1.5 billion) contract to build 65 trains for the Victorian government in Australia.

In a statement to Al Jazeera, a spokesman said the Victorian government is “very concerned” about allegations of forced labor related to companies involved in Victoria’s train project.

The document added that the government has “repeatedly assured that there is no evidence of forced labor by manufacturers in their supply chains”.

Almas Nizanidin with his wife Buzainafu Abudourexiti, has been in custody since 2017. She has not had a relationship with him since. [Courtesy of Almas Nizanidin]

Although the opposition has asked to prove these certainties, no one has yet been offered.

Instead, Opposition Transport Minister David Davis has taken a dramatic step in obtaining such evidence through a civil court process.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Davis acknowledged that it is “very difficult to look down a supply chain” to find evidence of forced labor.

However, he said “if the minister has received a guarantee [that Uighur forced labour was not being used] we want to see what that certainty is ”and we wondered why the government was“ fighting so hard ”not to give up on that evidence.

With the governments of the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada to treat the minority of Uighurs who have been putting pressure on China lately, Hussein, Salay and Nizanidin believe the Australian government should continue.

“The Australian government can acknowledge that this is genocide and has put pressure on the Chinese government to release my sister,” Salay said.

For all three, the problem is simple and humane: three Australian citizens remain out of touch with their loved ones.

“I need to talk to my wife,” Salay said. “I just want to reunite with my family.”

The pain of this distinction increased in the last Eid.

“Today is our Eid day and we called and talked [our family]”Hussein told Al Jazeera.

“But we’re crying. My child (our oldest is 11 years old) also asks him, ‘Where is my grandfather? Where is my grandmother? ‘”




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