China carries out a terrible repression against its Uighur minority. He is accused of detaining nearly a million people in camps. But she even tracks them outside the country. Since 2001, nearly 300 Uighurs have been arrested in the Arab world and extradited to China. The Uighurs are not only Muslims, but also Turkish speakers, let go by the whole world, including Turkey and in particular certain Gulf countries which go even further. For several years, most of the Uighurs who have fled have been identified by the United Arab Emirates, which even makes its premises, particularly in Dubai, available to the Chinese authorities to facilitate their task. It is a Sky News survey that reveals the pot of roses, based on seven testimonies that our countries are very fond of business with the United Arab Emirates always seek to ignore.
For years, the Chinese regime has been waging a fierce crackdown on them, accusing them of terrorism, now undoubtedly on an international scale. Beyond its own borders, therefore, while Beijing carries out fierce repression, pushes for the separation of families, institutionalizes forced labor. In this investigation by the British media, the Emirates, more than any other country, regularly come up in the testimonies. Arrests that often take place in “black sites”, lawless areas in Dubai in particular, and where Chinese officials come to carry out often tough interrogations against Uighurs who have been previously identified by the Emirati authorities.
The methods are terrible: one of the witnesses, a refugee in the Netherlands who had left China in 2009 after leaving the Chinese Communist Party, recounts how one day he received a message from an old friend from Xinjiang who invited to come and see him in Dubai to talk to him about something very important. It was in 2019. He goes there in a candid way and he then discovers a whole network of denunciation around him. Pressure is beginning to be put on him and his family in China to obtain information from him on other Uighur nationals who have taken refuge abroad. Others explain how they are tracked, even traveling to escape their country of exile, and in transit via Dubai, being picked up to end up in an Emirati detention center. “Wu” will discover many other Uighurs arrested like him on the spot. He will, like so many others, be questioned by Chinese security service officials on Emirati soil! Starting with the Chinese Consul General.
For years, beyond the good trade relations between the two countries, China and the Emirates have been collaborating for military and security cooperation. There are 6,000 Chinese companies present in the confederation. The quality of the Emirati secret services and cyber surveillance is second to none, thanks in particular to a long-standing collaboration with Israel in terms of security. And Abu Dhabi learned quickly. In addition, there is an extradition agreement between Beijing and Abu Dhabi, which suddenly allows this hunt against the Uighurs, who do not weigh much compared to the major issues of these bilateral relations. It is urgent to raise this issue not only in the name of international law, of the United Nations, but also in the name of our own relations between the Member States of the European Union and the United Arab Emirates. The Uighur question is also becoming increasingly important in European parliamentary debates, questioning our permanent relationship, even our dangerous dependence on China.