As China confronts the Taliban, Uighurs in Afghanistan fear for their lives

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Tuhan, who uses a pseudonym to protect his Taliban identity, finds himself trapped between a homeland where Uyghurs face growing repression and an adopted country where they consider themselves foreigners.

What worries them most is that they may be deported to China.

Former detainees allege that they were subjected to intense political indoctrination, forced labor, torture and even sexual abuse. China vehemently denies allegations of human rights abuses, and insists the camps are voluntary “vocational training centers” designed to end religious extremism and terrorism.

Tuhan said he fears what will happen to her and her family if they are forced to return.

“During all these past years, life was difficult … But what is happening now is the worst,” he said, referring to the Taliban’s acquisition. “It is only a matter of time before the Taliban discover that we are Uyghurs. Our lives are in danger.”

“Refugee from China”

Tuhan was only 7 years old when she and her parents fled Yarkand, an oasis on the ancient Silk Road, near the Chinese border with Afghanistan.

At the time, Kabul was known as the “Paris of the East” and, for ethnic Uighurs, was a shrine to the Chinese Cultural Revolution, a decade of political and social turmoil from 1966 to 1976, during which time Islam – like all other religions – was harshly repressed.
Tuhan and his family have been living in Afghanistan for decades.
Tuhan is one of up to 3,000 Uighurs in Afghanistan, according to Sean Roberts, a professor at George Washington University and author of “The War on the Uyghurs,” making them a tiny minority of more than 37 million in the country.

Many of them fled China after the Communist Party took control of Xinjiang in 1949. Some, like Tuhan, emigrated in the mid-1970s, during the chaos of the last years of the Cultural Revolution, crossing mountain passes. south of Xinjiang. to seek refuge, Roberts said.

Many Uyghurs now have Afghan citizenship, but their ID cards still identify them as Chinese refugees, including second-generation immigrants, according to a photo ID shared with CNN and stories of two Uyghurs.

Abdul Aziz Naseri, whose parents fled Xinjiang in 1976, said his identification still identifies him as a “refugee from China.” although he was born in Kabul.

Naseri, who now lives in Turkey, said he has picked up the names of more than 100 Uyghur families who want to flee Afghanistan.

“They are afraid of China, because the Taliban were dealing with China behind the door. And they are afraid (of) being returned to China,” he said.

A good friend “

There are reasons for Uighurs in Afghanistan to be concerned, experts say.

In July, a Taliban delegation paid a high-profile visit to Tianjin, where they met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

Wang called the Taliban “a major military and political force in Afghanistan” and said they would play “an important role in the country’s peace, reconciliation and reconstruction process.”

In return, the Taliban called China a “good friend” and pledged to “not allow any force to use Afghan territory to commit acts detrimental to China,” according to a statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry on the meeting.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi meets on July 28 with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban's political leader, in Tianjin, northern China.
And last week, a Taliban spokesman called for closer relations with Beijing in an interview with Chinese state broadcaster CGTN.

“China is a very important and strong country in our neighborhood and we have had very positive and good relations with China in the past,” Zabihullah Mujahid said. “We want to make these relationships even stronger and we want to improve the level of mutual trust.”

Roberts said Uyghur fears that the Taliban could deport them to China for more favor with Beijing were legitimate.

“(The Taliban) have many reasons to try to ingratiate Beijing in terms of gaining international recognition, in terms of getting financial aid at a time when the majority of the international community is not giving them financial aid,” he said.

Tuhan’s concern about being forced to return to China deepens Beijing’s increasingly aggressive efforts in recent years to return overseas Uighurs to Xinjiang, including Muslim countries.

CNN has compiled more than a dozen accounts detailing the alleged detention and deportation of Uighurs at the request of China in Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

In a report released in June, the Uyghur Human Rights Project said there had been at least 395 cases of Uighurs deported, extradited or returned to China from countries around the world since 1997.

In a statement to CNN, China’s Foreign Ministry described the Uyghur Human Rights Project as a “direct pro-independence organization against China.”

“The so-called data and reports published by them have no impartiality or credibility and are not worth refuting,” he said.

Suppress militants

The Chinese government has a long history of relations with the Taliban, dating back to the late 1990s, when the militant group last took control of Afghanistan.

Beijing has repeatedly urged the Taliban to crack down on Uyghur militants in Afghanistan, mainly the Islamic Movement of East Turkestan (ETIM), whom it has blamed for almost all terrorist attacks or violent incidents in Xinjiang and other parts of the country.

During his July meeting with Taliban officials in Tianjin, Wang, the Chinese foreign minister, said ETIM “represents a direct threat to the security of the state and the integrity of China’s territory.”

A video released by state broadcaster CGTN in 2019 compared the ETIM to al-Qaeda and ISIS, saying it “has tried to recruit people on a large scale, spreading a radical ideology that continues to cause chaos in many countries around the world.”

But experts say there is little independent evidence to confirm China’s claims about the size, capabilities and influence of ETIM, and there are doubts that it still exists today.

The ETIM began as a small group of Uighurs who arrived in Afghanistan ruled by the Taliban in 1998 with the intention of establishing an insurgency against Chinese rule, according to Roberts.

The Taliban initially allowed the group to settle in Afghanistan, but in an attempt to seek Chinese support amid international isolation, the Taliban assured Beijing that it would not allow any group to use its territory to carry carried out attacks on China.
These Uyghurs were imprisoned by the United States at Guantanamo. They are now used as an excuse for China’s repression in Xinjiang
In the 1990s and 2000s, Xinjiang experienced an increase in violent attacks, which Roberts said were often spontaneous outbursts of grievances against the Chinese government’s repressive policies. But after the September 11 attacks, Beijing tried to rethink all these incidents as related to Islamic terrorism led by external groups like ETIM, he said.
Few people he had heard of ETIM until the U.S. government designated it as a terrorist organization in 2002, during a period of counterterrorism cooperation with China after the 9/11 attacks. This decision, however, has been questioned by experts and officials, who see Washington as a quid pro quo to gain Beijing’s support for the invasion of Iraq.
Last year, amid worsening U.S.-China relations, the Trump administration withdrew ETIM as a terrorist group, sparking anger from Beijing. The U.S. State Department said the removal occurred because “for more than a decade, there has been no credible evidence that ETIM continues to exist.”
ETIM founder Hasan Mahsum was assassinated in 2003 by troops in Pakistan, where he and his followers fled after the US bombing of Afghanistan. Looks like the group died with him, Roberts said.
But in 2008, a successor group to the ETIM, called the Islamic Party of Turkistan (TIP), had emerged and threatened to attack the Beijing Olympics. The group is known to be affiliated with Al Qaeda and later became a key player in the Syrian civil war.

“They have been very prolific in terms of producing videos that threaten Beijing, but there is no evidence that they can carry out any attack on China,” Roberts said.

But the Chinese government has continued to use the existence of the TIP, which Beijing still refers to the name ETIM, to highlight the threat of terrorism and justify its repression in Xinjiang, Uyghur experts and activists said.

“Why send a friend?”

Now in his fifties, Tuhan lives in northern Afghanistan, earning a living tailored to people’s clothes, while his children do strange jobs, such as painting neighbors ’houses, for the money they can get.

But even ordinary people like her could find themselves dragged into Beijing’s campaign against terrorist groups.

Roberts said it is not clear that TIP has a significant presence in Afghanistan, although a small number of its members are believed to live in the country. If the Taliban deported someone to China, they would most likely be ordinary Uyghurs instead of TIP members with whom they have had long-term relations, he said.

“If they want to show Beijing that they were receptive to their (repatriation) demands, why send a friend they know when they could only send Uighurs to Afghanistan at random and suggest that they are a threat to Beijing?” Roberts said.

Despite having lived in Afghanistan for decades, Uyghurs are considered outsiders and, unlike thousands of people transported by security by the United States and its allies, have no country to help negotiate their exit.

“They really don’t have anyone to advocate on their behalf, to help them get out of the country,” Roberts said.

Tuhan said she and her family don’t even have a passport, so they have limited options to leave Afghanistan, even if another country was willing to take them.

“They don’t give the passport for free, and we can’t afford it. But now they have stopped issuing passports anyway,” he said.

“It’s been 45 years since we fled here. We’ve aged without seeing a good day,” he said. “We hope our children can have a better life. That’s all we want. We just want to be saved from this oppression.”

Arslan Khakiyev and James Griffiths contributed to this report.

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