ISLAMABAD: The last time Chaudhry Javed Atta saw his wife was over a year ago — the Pakistani trader in dried and fresh produce was leaving their home in northwestern China’s heavily Muslim Xinjiang region to go back to his country to renew his visa.
He remembers the last thing she told him: “As soon as you leave, they will take me to the camp and I will not come back.”
That was August, 2017. By then, Atta and Amina Manaji, from the Muslim ethnic Uighur group native to Xinjiang, had been married for 14 years.
Atta is one of scores of Pakistani businessmen __ and he says there are more than 200 __ whose spouses have disappeared, taken to what Chinese authorities tell them are education centers.
Beijing has been accused of interning members of its Muslim population — by some reports as many as 1 million — to “re-educate” them away from their faith. It is seen as a response to riots and violent attacks that the government blamed on separatists.
“They call them schools, but they are prisons,” Atta said. “They can’t leave.”
Pakistanis often rally loudly in defense of Islam and Muslims whenever they are perceived offended around the world — most recently over cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. In 1989, protests spread from Pakistan elsewhere, leading to the fatwa by Iran’s Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini against author Salman Rushdie for his depiction of Islam in his book Satanic Verses.
But political and economic factors, including concerns about losing out on vast Chinese investments, have kept Pakistan and other Muslim countries silent about the plight in China of fellow Muslims, the Uighurs.
“Cold, hard interests will always carry the day” in international relations, said Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the Washington-based Wilson Center. “The Muslim world’s deafening silence about China’s treatment of Muslims can be attributed to its strong interest in maintaining close relations with the world’s next superpower.”
China is financing major development projects in cash-strapped Pakistan. Islamabad says Beijing’s up to $75 billion development project known the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor — part of an effort to reconstruct the historic Silk Road linking China to all corners of Asia — will bring new prosperity to Pakistan, where the average citizen lives on just $125 a month.
For Atta, it’s not just the separation from his wife.
He has also had to leave their two sons, who are 5 and 7 years old and whose passports were confiscated by the Chinese government, in the care of his wife’s family. Otherwise, he said, the authorities would have put them in an orphanage.
He went back to China twice for a few months but both times his visas expired and he had to return to Pakistan. Getting in touch with family in Xinjiang is a circuitous route that involves reaching out to Pakistani friends still there, who then track down family members willing to talk.
“Now especially I am worried. It is now eight, almost nine months, that I have not seen my children,” he said. “I haven’t even been able to talk to them.”
Last week, Atta finally talked to his brother-in-law after a friend discovered he had a heart attack and was recovering in a hospital in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang.
“He said my sons were good, but he had no news of my wife,” said Atta.
China routinely responds to queries on Uighurs by saying its policies are aimed at creating “stability and lasting peace” in Xinjiang but President Xi Jinping’s campaign to subdue a sometimes restive region, including the internment of more than 1 million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities, has alarmed a United Nations panel and the US government.
Mushahid Hussain, chairman of Pakistan’s Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, said the cardinal principle of Pakistan-China relations is to refrain from commenting on anything to do with the other country’s domestic issues.
“Given the relationship of Pakistan with China, and in the Muslim world in particular, the Chinese narrative is apparently being accepted across the board as the one that is correct,” Hussain said.
A steady stream of Pakistani men has visited Beijing in recent months , lobbying for the release of their wives to little avail. Some say they met Pakistan’s ambassador to China, Masood Khalid, on multiple occasions, and were told their issues were raised privately with the Chinese.
Another Pakistani man in a similar predicament, Mir Aman, went to China more than 25 years ago as a poor laborer in search of work.
There, he met his wife, Maheerban Gul, they worked hard and eventually bought a hotel. The couple has two daughters, Shahnaz, 16, and Shakeela, 12, both now with their father in Pakistan.
Last year, Aman first tried to go back to China alone, but the authorities denied him entry at a border crossing without his wife. Then they returned together to Xinjiang. There, she was ordered to report every morning to the police, who gave her books on the Communist Party to read.
“When they would see anything written in Urdu, a prayer mat or something related to religion, they would seize it,” he said. “They want to eliminate Islam.”
After a few weeks, Aman was ordered to leave even though he had a six-month visa. He was told he could return after one month. When he did, his wife was gone.
For four months he pestered police every day, threatened to take his life in public. He was finally allowed to see his wife, who was brought to a local police station, for just an hour.
They cried. When the meeting ended he was told to go home to Pakistan “and stop making trouble for the administration,” Aman said.
He has no idea where she is being held.
Locked away, forgotten: Muslim Uighur wives of Pakistani men
Locked away, forgotten: Muslim Uighur wives of Pakistani men
- Beijing has been accused of interning members of its Muslim population to “re-educate” them away from their faith
- Pakistanis often rally loudly in defense of Islam and Muslims whenever they are perceived offended around the world
A plane veers off the runway and catches fire at a South Korean airport with reports of 28 dead
- Yonhap reported the plane veered off the runway and collided with a fence
SEOUL, South Korea: A plane with malfunctioning landing gear veered off the runway, hit a fence and caught fire Sunday at an airport in southern South Korea, killing at least 28 people, according to the emergency office and local media.
The emergency office said the fire was almost put out and rescue officials were trying to remove passengers from the Jeju Air passenger plane at the airport in the southern city of Muan. It said the plane with about 180 people was returning from Bangkok.
South Korean media outlets including Yonhap news agency reported that at least 28 people had died in the fire. The Muan Fire Station said it couldn’t immediately confirm the casualty reports. It said emergency workers pulled out at least two passengers.
Yonhap reported the plane veered off the runway and collided with a fence. Emergency officials said they were examining the exact cause of the fire.
Local TV stations aired footage showing thick pillows of black smoke billowing from the plane engulfed with flame.
The incident came as South Korea is embroiled into a huge political crisis triggered by President Yoon Suk Yeol’s stunning imposition of martial law and ensuing impeachment. Last Friday, South Korean lawmakers impeached acting President Han Duck-soo and suspended his duties, making Deputy Prime Minister Choi Sang-mok to take over.
Choi ordered officials to employ all available resources to rescue the passengers and crew, according to Yonhap news agency.
Trump sides with Musk in right-wing row over worker visas
- Musk, who himself migrated from South Africa on an H1-B, posted Thursday on his X platform that luring elite engineering talent from abroad was “essential for America to keep winning”
WASHINGTON: Donald Trump weighed in Saturday in a bitter debate dividing his traditional supporters and tech barrons like Elon Musk, saying that he backs a special visa program that helps highly skilled workers enter the country.
“I’ve always liked the (H1-B) visas, I have always been in favor of the visas, that’s why we have them” at Trump-owned facilities, the president-elect told the New York Post in his first public comments on the matter since it flared up this week.
An angry back-and-forth, largely between Silicon Valley’s Musk and traditional anti-immigration Trump backers, has erupted in fiery fashion, with Musk even vowing to “go to war” over the issue.
Trump’s insistent calls for sharp curbs on immigration were central to his election victory in November over President Joe Biden. He has vowed to deport all undocumented immigrants and limit legal immigration.
But tech entrepreneurs like Tesla’s Musk — as well as Vivek Ramaswamy, who with Musk is to co-chair a government cost-cutting panel under Trump — say the United States produces too few highly skilled graduates, and they fervently champion the H1-B program.
Musk, who himself migrated from South Africa on an H1-B, posted Thursday on his X platform that luring elite engineering talent from abroad was “essential for America to keep winning.”
Adding acrimony to the debate was a post from Ramaswamy, the son of immigrants from India, who deplored an “American culture” that he said venerates mediocrity, adding that the United States risks having “our asses handed to us by China.”
That angered several prominent conservatives who were backing Trump long before Musk noisily joined their cause this year, going on to pump more than $250 million into the Republican’s campaign.
“Looking forward to the inevitable divorce between President Trump and Big Tech,” said Laura Loomer, a far-right MAGA figure known for her conspiracy theories, who often flew with Trump on his campaign plane.
“We have to protect President Trump from the technocrats.”
She and others said Trump should be promoting American workers and further limiting immigration.
Musk, who had already infuriated some Republicans after leading an online campaign that helped tank a bipartisan budget deal last week, fired back at his critics.
Posting on X, the social media site he owns, he warned of a “MAGA civil war.”
Musk bluntly swore at one critic, adding that “I will go to war on this issue.”
That, in turn, drew a volley from Trump strategist Steve Bannon, who wrote on the Gettr platform that the H1-B program brings in migrants who are essentially “indentured servants” working for less than American citizens would.
In a striking jab at Trump’s close friend Musk, Bannon called the Tesla CEO a “toddler.”
Some of Trump’s original backers say they fear he is falling under the sway of big donors from the tech world like Musk and drifting away from his campaign promises.
It was not immediately clear whether Trump’s remarks might soothe the intraparty strife, which has exposed just how contentious changing the immigration system might be once he takes office in January.
Social media adverts offer illegal migrants ‘package deals’ to UK
- Home Office vows to crackdown on ‘despicable’ gangs promoting services on TikTok
- Over 450 migrants cross English Channel in small boats on Christmas Day
LONDON: People smugglers are using TikTok adverts to lure migrants to the UK with “package deals.”
More than 150,000 people have crossed the English Channel in small boats from mainland Europe to try and enter Britain illegally since 2018, the UK said on Friday.
Traffickers have started to deploy new techniques advertised on social media to encourage more people to make the perilous journey in winter, The Times newspaper reported.
These include deals offered on TikTok for as little as £2,500 ($3,140) with payment only required on reaching the UK coast. The adverts said specialized handlers would collect the migrants, take them to rented accommodation and find them work.
The Times said the adverts were being run by Albanian smuggling gangs. One TikTok account named “Journey to London” offered deals to get people from Albania to England.
Another used a photo of the boat that would carry the migrants and the promise of a “secure crossing.”
The smugglers also offered to fly customers into the UK on stolen passports for £12,000. They urged one prospective client to make use of the Christmas period when airports are busier, The Times reported.
The recent calm weather has sparked a surge in small boat crossings, with more than 850 people making the journey across the Channel on Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
While the adverts predominantly targeted Albanians, the highest numbers of migrants using small boats in the year up to September were from Afghanistan, Iran and Syria.
A Home Office spokesperson described the smuggling gangs as “despicable” and said they were “exploiting vulnerable people by peddling lies on social media and placing them in horrendous conditions, working for next to nothing.”
“Anyone found to be doing this will face severe penalties and we are working with the National Crime Agency and major social media companies to rapidly remove online adverts promoting dangerous small boat crossings,” the person said.
TikTok told The Times it had proactively removed adverts posted by the users.
The number of small boat crossings hit a peak in 2022, when 45,774 people made the journey. More than 36,000 have done so this year.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has promised to “smash” the people smuggling gangs, with the issue of immigration featuring heavily in campaigning for the July election.
UN warns nearly a fifth of world’s children affected by war
- Numbers at their highest since Second World War, almost doubled since 1990
- Gaza, Sudan among worst affected, more children expected to be casualties in Ukraine as toll continues to rise
LONDON: The UN has warned that nearly one in five children around the world live in areas affected by war. The global body’s children’s agency UNICEF has said 473 million children face the worst violence seen since the Second World War, with the number having almost doubled since 1990.
The UN said it had identified a record 32,990 grave violations against 22,557 children, the highest number on record. It added that around 44 percent of the nearly 45,000 victims of Israel’s war in Gaza were children, whilst there had been more child casualties in the war in Ukraine in the first nine months of 2024 than in the entirety of the previous year.
“By almost every measure, 2024 has been one of the worst years on record for children in conflict in UNICEF’s history, both in terms of the number of children affected and the level of impact on their lives,” said UNICEF’s Executive Director Catherine Russell.
“A child growing up in a conflict zone is far more likely to be out of school, malnourished, or forced from their home — too often repeatedly — compared with a child living in places of peace.
“This must not be the new normal. We cannot allow a generation of children to become collateral damage to the world’s unchecked wars.”
UNICEF added that there had been a significant increase in sexual violence toward young women and girls, and highlighted an explosion of reports in Haiti where rape and sexual assault cases increased 1,000 percent in 2024.
Malnutrition, too, is a major cause of trauma for children in conflict zones, with UNICEF focusing in particular on its effects in Sudan and Gaza. Around half a million people in five conflict-affected countries, it added, are affected by famine.
Gaza is also the center of a crisis regarding access to healthcare, with a polio outbreak detected in July this year. The UN responded with a mass vaccine campaign, which has so far reached 90 percent of the enclave’s children despite the hazardous conditions. But beyond Gaza, the UN said, 40 percent of the world’s unvaccinated children live in or near conflict zones.
UNICEF added that over 52 million children lack access to education, with Gaza and Sudan again at the forefront of this crisis.
Ukraine, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Syria have also seen swathes of their education infrastructure destroyed. The charity War Child, meanwhile, reported earlier in December that 96 percent of children in Gaza believe death is imminent, with almost half describing trauma that made them feel dying would be desirable.
“Children in war zones face a daily struggle for survival that deprives them of a childhood,” Russell said. “Their schools are bombed, homes destroyed, and families torn apart. They lose not only their safety and access to basic life-sustaining necessities, but also their chance to play, to learn, and to simply be children. The world is failing these children. As we look towards 2025, we must do more to turn the tide and save and improve the lives of children.”
Afghan Taliban hit several locations in Pakistan in ‘retaliation’ for attacks
- Pakistani air raids on southeastern Afghanistan killed at least 46 people on Tuesday
- Pakistan’s attacks took place as Islamabad’s special envoy visited Kabul for talks to strengthen ties
KABUL: Afghan Taliban forces targeted several locations in Pakistan on Saturday, Afghanistan’s defense ministry said, days after the Pakistani military launched deadly air raids on its territory in the latest flare-up of tensions.
The Pakistani Air Force bombed Afghanistan’s southeastern Paktika province on Tuesday, claiming it was targeting alleged hideouts of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan — the Pakistani Taliban — a militant group separate from the Afghan Taliban.
The raids killed at least 46 people, most of whom were children and women, the Afghan Ministry of National Defense said after the attack.
Announcing Saturday’s strikes, the ministry said in a statement that “several points beyond the assumptive lines ... were targeted in retaliation.”
While the statement did not mention Pakistan, the “assumptive lines” is a reference to the Afghan-Pakistani border, part of the Durand Line — a colonial-era boundary dividing the regions and communities between Afghanistan and what is now Pakistan. The boundary has never been officially recognized by any Afghan government.
Citing ministry sources, local media reported that 19 Pakistani soldiers were killed in the clashes. There was no official comment from Pakistan, but a security source confirmed that the confrontation with Afghan forces took place.
Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021, Pakistan has repeatedly accused them of allowing TTP militants to use Afghan territory for cross-border attacks — a claim the Taliban have denied.
The latest escalation of hostilities comes as TTP fighters last week claimed responsibility for killing 16 Pakistani soldiers in the border region of South Waziristan. The area targeted by Pakistani strikes days later was the nearby Barmal district on the Afghan side of the border.
“Pakistan claims that by targeting alleged TTP hideouts and training venues in Barmal district in southeast of Afghanistan, it ensures security inside the country. This means that by challenging the security of its neighbors, Pakistan is trying to strengthen its own security,” Abdul Saboor Mubariz, board member of the Center for Strategic and Regional Studies in Kabul, told Arab News.
The Pakistani attack took place on the same day that Islamabad’s special representative for Afghanistan, Mohammad Sadiq, was in Kabul for talks to strengthen bilateral ties.
“A major problem that exists in Pakistan’s politics is that the civil government is not aligned with the military ... The civil government is backing negotiations, while the army is after a military solution,” Mubariz said.
“TTP has been a major barrier in relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan ... the Taliban, however, have continuously shown willingness for talks.”
Abdul Sayed, a Sweden-based analyst and expert on the politics and security of the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, interpreted Pakistan’s attack just hours after the Islamabad envoy’s visit as a “strategic message from Pakistan’s military establishment, signaling that failure to meet their demands through dialogue may result in the application of force.”
The subsequent responses from Taliban officials and Saturday’s retaliation by Taliban forces “appear to underscore their resolve not to yield to such pressure,” Sayed told Arab News.
“The Taliban’s stance suggests a commitment to defending Afghanistan’s territorial sovereignty and an unwillingness to capitulate under the threat of force. This approach of employing force is unlikely to yield a sustainable resolution; instead, it risks exacerbating security challenges for both states, particularly Pakistan, while further destabilizing the broader regional security landscape.”
