The Moroccan Court of Cassation has approved the extradition of a Chinese national who is a member of the Muslim Uyghur minority, arrested in July on his arrival in Morocco and wanted by China for “terrorist acts”. “The justice confirmed yesterday (Wednesday, December 15) the extradition of my client. We have not yet awaited the judgment to know what motivates this decision but it is psychologically very hard for him”, explained Me Miloud Kandil. Yidiresi Aishan, 34 years old and father of three children, was arrested on July 19 on his arrival at Casablanca airport (western Morocco) from Turkey, at the request of China, which blames him “terrorist acts committed in 2017” and accuses him of being part of a “terrorist organization”, the Islamic Movement of East Turkestan (ETIM).
Yidiresi Aishan, a computer scientist established in Turkey since 2012 with his family, refutes these accusations and “assures not to have returned to China since 2012”, according to his lawyer who said he did not know the date of his extradition. Morocco’s air borders are closed due to the spread of the Omicron variant, with the exception of special repatriation flights subject to case-by-case authorization from the authorities. Upon arrival in Morocco, Yidiresi Aishan, who holds Chinese nationality, was the subject of an Interpol red notice issued at Beijing’s request. But the international organization for police cooperation suspended this red notice in August 2021.
More than a million Uyghurs are or have been detained in political re-education camps in China’s Xinjiang province, foreign experts say. After several months of investigation, a group of lawyers and human rights experts gathered in London concluded last week that China’s treatment of Uyghurs amounts to genocide, angering Beijing. In Geneva, UN human rights experts urged the Moroccan government to suspend the decision to extradite Yidiresi Aishan to China, “where he risks serious human rights violations, including arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, or torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” No State has the right to expel, return or otherwise remove a person from its territory where there are “substantial reasons” to believe that the person would be in danger of being subjected to torture in the destination state, the experts stressed.
According to Amnesty International, “the imminent extradition” (of Yidiresi Aishan) amounts to a refoulement because he runs a serious risk of being tortured on his return to China “. The extradition request is motivated by “the work he has done in the past for Uyghur organizations”, said the human rights organization.
The Moroccan Court of Cassation has just ruled in favor of the extradition of #IdrisHasan, to China.
He is a Uyghur man who is at risk of being tortured or subjected to other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. #SaveIdrisHasan https://t.co/peE0vEnP2X
– Amnesty International France (@amnestyfrance) December 15, 2021
“Whatever the decision of the Court of Cassation, the Moroccan authorities can always take a fair decision in accordance with their legal obligations: to refrain from extraditing the Uyghur (Yidiresi Aishan) to China where he risks torture and persecution”, pleaded Eric Goldstein, interim regional director of Human Rights Watch (HRW).
The plight of the Uyghurs, a predominantly Muslim minority who make up just under half of Xinjiang’s 25 million inhabitants, has been denounced by human rights defenders around the world and is the subject of increasing confrontation. long live between the West and China. The US Department of Commerce announced Thursday, December 16, that it had added some thirty companies, including Chinese biotechnology firms, to the blacklist of entities accused in particular of human rights violations against Uyghurs.