By Gerry Shih | AP December 29, 2017 KAYSERI, Turkey — Iminjin Qari felt upbeat as he drove to Istanbul’s airport with three empty buses and a simple task: pick up about 200 fellow Uighurs who had fled China for asylum in Turkey — and escort them to safety. But 20 burly Uighurs — recruiters for Islamic militant groups — were already there, greeting the refugees as they trickled out. “Just come with us,” the ...

Radio Free Asia An ethnic Uyghur woman jailed for “attempting to flee the country” has died due to complications from a medical condition that was left untreated while in detention, according to her husband, who said that authorities illegally detained his wife after she applied for a passport. Hayrigul, 42, was arrested in January in the municipality of Tianjin where she had lived since relocating from Kas ...

China Digital Times Human Rights Watch has reported on a program which has gathered biometric data—including fingerprints, iris scans, blood-type, and DNA—on millions of residents in six regions in Xinjiang in 2017 under the guise of a free public health program providing physical examinations. HRW earlier this year voiced concern over a lack of privacy protections related to the planned expansion of DNA co ...

  Radio Free Asia Authorities in northwest China’s Xinjiang region have detained nearly 10 percent of the population of a township in ethnic Uyghur-dominated Kashgar (in Chinese, Kashi) prefecture, according to sources, following an incident three years ago. A former resident of Kashgar Kona Sheher (Shufu) county’s Bullaqsu township recently told RFA’s Uyghur Service in a letter that “a large number of ...

By GERRY SHIH 2017-12-17 KORLA, China (AP) — Nobody knows what happened to the Uighur student after he returned to China from Egypt and was taken away by police. Not his village neighbors in China’s far west, who haven’t seen him in months. Not his former classmates, who fear Chinese authorities beat him to death. Not his mother, who lives in a two-story house at the far end of a country road, alone behind ...