- Joel Gunter
- BBC reporter
Image source,AFP
Vendors on the streets of Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan, where a small group of Uyghurs live.
As the Taliban quickly seized control of Afghanistan, the local situation began to settle. A group of people gathered in a house in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. The visitors were very cautious and low-key, and one or two people walked in scattered, trying not to attract attention.
They are the elders of the Uyghur community in this city, as well as some family members. Others in other cities participated in the meeting via Skype. The atmosphere in the house is full of fear. The conversation has only one theme: escape.
A middle-aged man began to call activists in Turkey and ask them for help. One did not answer the phone, and the other connected and said that he would do his best to help them, but he had no way at the moment.
This group of people urged the caller to continue to try and make a few more calls, but they did not get good news. In the end, after night fell, the guests walked away cautiously as they came, even more depressed than before.
“There is no one to help us now,” one of them told the BBC after the meeting. “We are scared. Everyone is scared.”
Like millions of other Afghans, the Uighurs here have awakened this past Monday to find that the sky has changed, and the Taliban have become in power. Like other Afghans, Uighurs are afraid of the living conditions under the control of the Taliban, but their fear has another source: greater influence from China.
There are approximately 12 million Uyghurs living in China in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region in the northwest. Since 2017, they and other Muslim minorities have been subject to a government action: mass detention, surveillance, forced labor, and, according to some reports, sterilization, abuse, and rape. China has repeatedly denied any violations of human rights in Xinjiang, and stated that the relevant concentration camps are vocational education centers aimed at combating extremism.
Many Uighurs in Afghanistan — thought to be about 2,000 — are second-generation immigrants, and the parents’ generation fled China decades before the current crackdown. However, their Afghan ID shows “Uyghurs” or “Chinese refugees”, and they fear that if the vacuum left by the United States is filled by China, they may become targets.
“That is what Uighurs in Afghanistan fear most now,” said a Uighur man in his 50s in Kabul, whose family has not left their house since the Taliban seized power. “We are afraid that the Taliban will help China control our activities, or they will arrest us and hand us over to China,” he said.
All Uyghurs interviewed by the BBC in Afghanistan said that since the Taliban seized control of the country, they have basically been hiding at home and only occasionally contact the outside world through the phone.
“We are like the living dead now,” said another Uyghur man in Kabul, “too scared to go out.”
A father in Mazar-e-Sharif city described him hiding at home with his wife, children, and relatives.
“We have been sitting here for 10 days now, and our lives are hanging there,” he said. “Our ID clearly says that we are Uyghurs.”
Image source,Getty
Some camps in Xinjiang, China are believed to be used to detain Uyghurs.
The fear of China is not groundless. The Chinese government’s suppression of Uighurs has extended beyond the border in recent years, silenced them through various powerful means, and in some cases detained them or sent them back to Xinjiang. Data released by the Uyghur Human Rights Project in June showed that since 1997, at least 395 Uyghurs have been expelled, extradited or handed over to the Chinese authorities from various countries. The actual number may be even larger. Much.
“China has made substantial investments in many Central Asian countries and established close diplomatic relations. As a result, Uyghurs in these countries have become targets of local police and Chinese special agents,” said Mehmet Tohti, a well-known Uyghur activist in Canada. ) Said, “We learned from recent cases that the result of establishing close diplomatic relations with China is that Uyghurs are being persecuted.”
China may be considering a similar strategy against the Taliban. In some respects, this kind of alliance is unlikely-the Taliban and Uyghur militants have some historical ties, and China claims that the latter poses a threat to its national security. However, the Taliban and China also have a history of cooperation. China has a small border with Afghanistan. Analysts say that China has the ability to provide technology and infrastructure to the new Taliban regime-and can grant it legitimacy, which will likely surpass any solidarity between the Taliban and Uyghurs.
“China’s One Belt One Road project has given it many economic tools to influence the countries it cooperates with. This often results in Uyghurs becoming scapegoats,” said Bradley Jia, an analyst who studies China’s economic and political influence overseas. Ding (Bradley Jardine) said.
“The Taliban will hope that China will make economic concessions and give them much-needed investment. As for Uighurs in Afghanistan, to put it cruelly, they may become bargaining chips.”
In July, China invited a delegation of Taliban leaders to Tianjin. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi stated that he expects the organization to “play an important role in the process of peace, reconciliation and reconstruction” in Afghanistan. The Taliban stated that they “will not allow anyone to use Afghan territory to fight China.”
Image source,xinhua
In July, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Baradar, the number two Taliban, in Tianjin.
Uighurs in Afghanistan know about this meeting-news of the strengthening of diplomatic relations between the two sides has spread throughout the Uyghur community in Afghanistan. They also know the precedent of China tracking Uyghurs overseas in recent years.
“We all know the relationship between the Taliban and China, and we are afraid that they will first target those who fled,” said a Uighur woman who grew up in Xinjiang and now lives in Mazar-e-Sharif.
“We don’t go shopping or leave home anymore,” she said. “We live in fear. We need help. Please help us.”
Unlike other groups at risk in Afghanistan, Uighurs do not have government allies as their representatives-under Taliban rule, this may make them more vulnerable.
“This is a community without any government representation,” said Sean Roberts, a professor at George Washington University and author of The War on the Uyghurs. ” They watched other countries rescue their citizens or people with some kind of ethnic ties-Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, etc., but for Uyghurs, I think they must feel that no one speaks for them now.”
NGOs are already working to rescue Uyghurs, but they face the same obstacles as others. Abdulaziz Naseri, a Uyghur refugee living in Turkey, told the BBC that he collected a list with the help of Uyghurs in the country and submitted it to the United States and the United Kingdom through Uyghur organizations. And Turkish government officials. “We are doing our best to rescue them,” Nasseri said.
However, in Mazar-e-Sharif, which is far from Kabul, it feels like distant water cannot save near fire. A family was miraculously offered the opportunity to leave Afghanistan by plane from the capital, but they had to travel to the airport for two days and pass through various Taliban checkpoints in the middle. They were afraid to provide their identification.
“As Muslims, we would say that despair is a devil’s idea,” said the father of the family. “But since I was born in Afghanistan, all my memories are wars. Forty years of war, one after another,” he Say, “I don’t worry about myself anymore, just worry about my children, especially my daughters. I had hoped that they could be educated and become doctors.”
None of this family has ever set foot in China. They only read about Xinjiang detention camps and the alleged violations. My father was afraid of life under the Taliban because he had memories of it. “But we are more afraid of China,” he said, “because we can’t imagine it.”