After spending 20 years in a Chinese prison, Abdullah Abdulramán took refuge in Turkey, which for a long time sheltered tens of thousands of Uyghurs, a persecuted Muslim minority in China.
But as Ankara now depends on investments from Beijing and the Chinese vaccine against the new coronavirus, this 46-year-old refugee fears being expelled to China, a country accused of having interned more than a million Uyghurs in camps.
“We are no longer safe here,” laments Abdulramán, who has been participating in daily demonstrations in front of the Chinese consulate in Istanbul for two months.
“If Turkey sends me back (to China), the Chinese will not let me live,” he adds. “We are afraid of being expelled.”
Fear has risen since the Chinese Parliament ratified an extradition agreement with Turkey dating from 2017 in December.
Turkish MPs have not commented on this text, but Uighurs living in Istanbul denounce an increasingly hostile climate that has led thousands of them to flee to the West.
– “All our hopes” –
Abdurramán was jailed in China in the 1990s for having participated in demonstrations against the regime. In 2014 he arrived in Turkey.
In Istanbul he found peace and security among the Uighur diaspora, who share cultural and linguistic roots with the Turkish population.
But the respite was short-lived: since 2018 his life is once again immersed in uncertainty.
The Turkish police detained him on suspicion of “terrorist activities”, the same charge that the Chinese authorities accuse him of. He was locked up in a detention center for immigrants in western Turkey for a year.
A Turkish court acquitted him but denied the renewal of his residence permit, essential for receiving medical care, using public transport or opening a bank account.
“Many are undocumented like me, due to pressure from China,” he says.
“We have fled China and pinned our hopes on Turkey. If Turkey expels us, no one will protect us except Allah.”
– Vaccines in exchange for influence –
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Cavusoglu tried to reassure the refugees that a ratification of the extradition treaty by Ankara does not mean “that Turkey is going to expel the Uyghurs to China.”
However, Ankara is accused of expelling Uighurs indirectly, sending them to third countries, such as Tajikistan, from where they are taken to China.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was once one of the few leaders who denounced the way in which Beijing treated Muslims, even going so far as to accuse her of “genocide” in 2009, is now silent.
A silence that contrasts with the outrage publicly expressed by Western countries, as there is growing evidence about the plight of the Uyghurs.
After initially denying it, China acknowledged the existence of the camps in Xinjiang but claims that they are “vocational training centers.”
According to Seyit Tumturk, a Uighur independence activist, China is taking advantage of coronavirus vaccines – the only ones available in Turkey to date – and the erosion of relations between Ankara and the West to “expand its influence.”
– “Political instrument” –
According to him, some 3,000 Uyghurs have left Turkey since 2019 for fear that the situation in the country will deteriorate.
Obul Tevekkul, a real estate agent in Istanbul’s Sefakoy district, where many Uighurs live, has the impression that his community has become a “political instrument”.
He says he is “disappointed by these trade and political deals (on the vaccine and extradition) with China.”
Regardless, Semsinur Gafur, 48, hopes that Erdogan will take on the role of defender of oppressed Muslims.
With tears in her eyes this woman recalls when the Turkish president accused Israel in 2009 of “killing Palestinian children” during the Davos forum. “One minute!” (“One minute!”), Erdogan shouted when the moderator wanted to cut him off.
Gafur starts crying. “All we want is for the Turkish president to say ‘One minute!’ to China”.
fo / zak / gkg / ezz / erl / es
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