Originally posted by the Voice of America.
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Diaspora Uighurs Say China Confirms Deaths, Indictments of Missing Relatives
Years Later

Asim Kashgarian

   Some members of the Uighur community abroad say China is now officially
   announcing the indictments or deaths of family members who vanished
   years ago in internment camps in the Xinjiang region.

   VOA recently talked to five of those diaspora Uighurs who said they
   were either directly contacted by Chinese officials or learned through
   foreign missions, U.N. working groups, or Chinese government press
   conferences that their loved ones were either jailed on dubious charges
   or died of illnesses at the so-called reeducation camps.

   Abdurehim Gheni, 44, a Uighur living in the Netherlands, told VOA he
   lost contact with his family in Xinjiang in 2017. He said a letter to
   the Dutch Foreign Ministry from the Chinese Embassy said that two of
   his brothers, a niece and two brothers-in-law had been sentenced to
   prison terms ranging from 3 to 16 years for crimes such as disturbing
   social order. The embassy said the rest of his family were "living
   normally in society," a claim Gheni, a naturalized Dutch citizen, said
   is far from reassuring.

   He has held one-man weekend demonstrations in Amsterdam since 2018 to
   protest the sudden disappearance of his family.

   He is not the only diaspora Uighur to receive news recently from the
   Chinese about missing family members.

   The Chinese Embassy in Ankara told Nursiman Abdureshid, 32, that her
   parents and siblings had been imprisoned for "terrorism" after they
   disappeared in mid-2017. She believes the embassy contact was the
   result of the active advocacy she has led since February to secure the
   release of her family.

   'Training'

   Abdureshid left Xinjiang for Turkey in 2015 to pursue a master's degree
   and has not returned to the region. She said she learned from friends
   and distant relatives that her entire family had been taken to
   "training."

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