The Chinese authorities are pushing back against overseas Uyghurs by targeting their relatives.
Rushan Abbas, a Uyghur American activist, at a rally encouraging sanctions against Chinese officials in Washington, May 3, 2019.
The government confirmed Erkin’s death but attributed it to an illness. Her uncle, Abduweli Ayup, the activist, believes she died in state custody.Ayup says his niece was only the latest in his family to come under pressure from the authorities. His two siblings had already been detained and imprisoned. All three were targeted in retaliation for his efforts to expose the plight of the Uyghurs, he said.
Dolkun Isa, the German-based president of the World Uyghur Congress, a Uyghur rights group, said he believes his older brother is in detention. He learned in late May that his younger brother, Hushtar, had been sentenced to life in prison. “It was connected to my activism, surely,” Isa said. “As retaliation against me because I made that public speech, as a tool to silence me, they abducted my sister,” Abbas said. “They have my sister as a hostage right now.”
Back home, Ayup’s brother, Erkin Ayup, a local Communist Party official, knew that his own situation was precarious. In 2016, he told his daughter that a crackdown was unfolding, and he feared he could be caught up in it, according to Asami Nuru, a friend of Mihriay Erkin’s in Tokyo. Her family and friends say her decision to return to China in June 2019 was sudden. She left her suitcases in the house where she lived.
Singapore Latest News, Singapore Headlines
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