CHINA EXODUS

Number of asylum-seekers from China 2010 – 2020

Threatening from afar

Many people who flee are concerned that China will attempt to persecute them after they leave the country. These include the Uyghurs, a mostly Muslim Turkic group that lives in China’s Xinjiang region.

Turkey is seen as a sanctuary for Uyghur refugees fleeing Chinese detention centers which Human Rights Watch calls “crimes against humanity.” About 50,000 Uyghurs reside in the western Asia country.

China denies abusing the Uyghurs. In August 2020, Chinese state media CGTN described the facilities as “vocational education and training centers, which were set up to redirect people away from religious extremism.”

As Turkey and China strengthen ties over economic and security matters, Uyghur families in Turkey and their lawyers say that the community has faced more threats and that they fear Turkey is being pressured to prosecute and deport Uyghur activists.

Enver Turdi, an Uyghur, says he is facing ongoing scrutiny in Turkey, where he spent a year in detention. In Xinjiang, he reported news of rights abuses in China, and he continues to do so from Turkey.

“Turkey holds and investigates people for months or a year and finds nothing. Once they have the correct information, they let people go. For me, it’s been three years, and they are still investigating. China cannot provide evidence,” Turdi told.

Since 2017, the Chinese government has detained at least 1 million mostly Uyghur Muslims from the Xinjiang region, according to Amnesty International.

The United States and human rights groups say China’s treatment of the Uyghurs amounts to genocide.

Bugra Arkin, an ethnic Uyghur Muslim from Xinjiang, was granted asylum in the United States in 2018, the same year he says authorities took people close to him to a detention center.

“In 2018, my father and my uncle, my cousins, some of my friends, they disappeared, and then I heard they were taken to the concentration camp,” Arkin told.

He said that this year, someone speaking Chinese made two frightening phone calls to him and his wife.

“She was threatening me, even death-threatening my 2-year-old daughter,” Arkin said. “She said, ‘We are closely watching you. We will kill you. You are going to die.’”

Fatima Abdulghafur, who was born in Xinjiang, told she moved from China in search of freedom. Abdulghafur, who is pursuing a doctorate in geophysics, lived in the United States and then went to Australia, got married, and stayed in the country that is home to more than 650,000 immigrants who were born in China.

Abdulghafur said her brother was among the Uyghurs detained in camps, as had been her father, who died at one of the sites.

“When I left China, it’s definitely because I saw I could be forever a slave,” she said.

China causing kids of exiled Uyghur parents to orphanages says Amnesty

Emily Pei married a Canadian and moved to the country 12 years ago, and now she helps immigrants from China and elsewhere who want to live and work on Prince Edward Island. She told that many of the immigrants she knows are motivated to make the move for their children’s education.

Jeff Young, director of Prince Edward Island’s immigration office, told that Chinese immigrants find the area enticing and are often motivated to move there because of their children.

“I think they see PEI as a safe place. In some ways, they’re looking for that quieter way of life. Simple things like ‘fresh air.’ We hear that a lot from that community,” he said.

Pei said the area has changed in positive ways for the Chinese community since she first moved to Prince Edward Island.

“Compared to 10 years ago, it’s much better now, with Chinese supermarkets, you know. Before we had only one or two, but now, maybe five or six. So, the Chinese community is growing.”