China's persecuted Uyghurs live 'freely' in Turkey
Istanbul (CNN)The
call to prayer at Emine Inanc mosque brings together immigrants who
have found sanctuary in Istanbul's working-class Zeytinburnu
neighborhood.
With no
room inside the overcrowded mosque, dozens of worshippers spill onto
the street. For some, like Ishqiyar Abudureyimu, praying openly would
have been unimaginable just a few years ago when he was living in China.
The
27-year-old is among thousands of Uyghurs, a predominantly Muslim
ethnic minority from Xinjiang province in western China, who have sought
refuge in Turkey after escaping Beijing's brutal crackdown against the
group.
Ethnic
and religious ties between Turkey and the Uyghurs, the immigrants say,
have made building new lives in Istanbul easier for them.
Uyghurs,
who call their homeland "East Turkestan," speak a dialect of Turkish
and, like the Turks, are considered ethnically Turkic.
Dozens
of Uyghur shops and restaurants line the streets of Zeytinburnu, a
small neighborhood near Istanbul's international airport. Most shop
signs are in the group's native script and language which they say was
banned in Xinjiang province.
In a
rundown building, children attend after-school classes to learn their
mother tongue. Boys and girls crammed into small classrooms recite the
Uyghur alphabet which most are learning for the first time.
"We
are more comfortable than we were in our home country," says
Abudureyimu, who has lived in Turkey since 2014. "I can practice my
religion freely, speak my language freely," he adds. "In Turkey I saw
that a man can live freely, in peace. We are free here."
Missing relatives
However,
Abudureyimu is all too aware that back at home, oppression against
Uyghurs continues. Seated in an Istanbul Uyghur restaurant, he lays out
more than two dozen photographs of loved ones who he says have
disappeared in China. He arranges the images along a straight line, then
holds them up and introduces each of his family members.
"My father ... my mother ... my sister," he tells CNN, his voice fraught with emotion as he identifies them.
Abudureyimu
says he does not know the whereabouts of his family or even if they are
alive, but he believes Chinese authorities detained them. He adds that
the crackdown against Uyghurs targeted his family for years but that it
worsened after he fled. Many other families whose relatives left China
have also come under increased pressure from authorities, he said.
Chinese authorities did not respond to CNN's request for comment.
An
estimated 1 million Uyghurs are being held in camps across eastern
China as part of the crackdown, according to a 2018 US congressional
report.
The Chinese government has never explained the disappearances, which began in 2017, nor said how many people are being held in the camps, which they insist are "vocational training centers" that local "students" willingly attend.
"The
local Chinese government is taking these preventative counter-terrorism
and de-extremization measures to protect more people from being
devoured by terrorism and extremism," Chinese Foreign Ministry
spokesperson Hua Chunying said in December 2018.
In
early January, Chinese authorities took some foreign diplomats and
journalists on a carefully supervised tour of some of the "vocational
education centers."
Detainees were
seen taking language courses in standard Mandarin Chinese, painting,
performing ethnic dances and even singing the song, "If you're happy and
you know it, clap your hands," according to a Reuters report.
"All
of us found that we have something wrong with ourselves and luckily
enough the Communist Party and the government offer this kind of school
to us for free," one Uyghur inmate told journalists during the tour.
But China's claims don't answer the Uyghur community's questions about their disappeared loved ones.
Diaspora
members see solidarity protests as their main chance to support their
families back home. Dozens of Uyghurs gather in central Istanbul, waving
Uyghur nationalist flags and carrying photographs of missing parents,
siblings and spouses. Some hold whole family portraits.
'"Those
photos are of my relatives and Uyghur celebrities," said one protester,
philosophy student Fazilet Gurec. "We lost contact three years ago."
"Our expectation is to know what happened to them and what is their situation now," she added.
One
of the last photographs in Abudureyimu's collection back at the Uyghur
restaurant is of his mother sitting outside Istanbul's Hagia Sophia
mosque. He claims she was detained after she returned from a 2015 visit
to Turkey.
He also shows a picture
of his family home, which he hasn't seen since he fled western Xinjiang.
Recently, he discovered the photograph on social media -- it was
blanketed with snow and appeared abandoned.
Solidarity in Turkey
A
sense of solidarity with the Uyghurs is evident in Turkey, but trade
ties with China have tempered Ankara's response to their plight. For the
most part, Turkey has opened its doors to Uyghurs escaping persecution,
but remained largely silent about the brutal crackdown.
However,
Turkey's foreign affairs ministry issued an explosive statement in
February slamming the Chinese government for undertaking a deliberate
campaign to eradicate "the ethnic, religious and cultural identities of
the Uyghur Turks and other communities in the region."
It
condemned the camps where China holds Uyghurs as a "great shame for
humanity," adding that hundreds of thousands of members of the group
were subject to "torture and political brainwashing" in the camps.
In a statement, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on Turkey to withdraw its "groundless accusations," adding
that both countries were facing "severe anti-terrorism situations." The
statement said China's camps were open to the world.
"We
have invited more than 12 countries' ambassadors to China and foreign
correspondents, including the Turkish ones, to visit Xinjiang," the
statement said.
Turkey's statement
came after reports claimed the popular Uyghur folk musician Abdurehim
Heyit had died in jail in China. The Turkish Foreign Ministry said it
learned that he had died. Beijing denied the reports, broadcasting what
it claimed was video footage proving Heyit was still alive.
In
response, Uyghurs in Turkey joined a #MeTooUyghur social media
campaign, with hundreds taking to the streets demanding China release
proof-of-life videos of their disappeared relatives.
"Every
morning I wake up and hope not to receive a sad news," says
Abudureyimu. "My dad, mom, brothers, grandfathers ... I live in fear of
receiving news of their death."
The
Uyghurs want China to be held to account for the disappearance of their
missing relations. Abdul Melik, a member of Istanbul's Uyghur community
told CNN: "There are some individual voices, some individual countries
(speaking out), but the whole world is in deep sleep now."
Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/12/middleeast/turkey-uyghur-community-intl/index.html
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