China’s police state goes global, leaving refugees in fear

1 / 2
This recent undated screen grab taken from video from AFPTV on July 22, 2019 shows 33-year-old ethnic Uighur cameraman Shawudun Abdughupur during an interview with AFP in Auckland. (AFP / AFPTV / Diego Opatowski)
2 / 2
This photo taken on July 6, 2019 shows 32-year-old Melbourne-based Uighur refugee Shir Muhammad Hasan displaying messages on his phone at his Melbourne home. (AFP / William West)
Updated 23 July 2019
Follow

China’s police state goes global, leaving refugees in fear

  • An estimated one million ethnic Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities in Xinjiang province have been swept into “vocational education centers”

SYDNEY: Muslims who escaped China’s crackdown in Xinjiang still live in fear, saying new homes abroad and even Western passports afford them no protection against a state-driven global campaign of intimidation.
With menacing text and voice messages, and explicit threats to relatives still living in Xinjiang, China’s powerful state security apparatus has extended its reach to Uighurs living in liberal democracies as far away as New Zealand and the United States, in a bid to silence activists and recruit informants.
The Communist Party’s dragnet in Xinjiang has swept an estimated one million ethnic Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities into “vocational education centers” that numerous studies and reports have exposed as harsh internment camps.
For those who managed to get out and settle overseas, the search for a true safe haven has remained elusive as they complain they and their families have been remotely harried and harassed to the point of desperation.
Guly Mahsut, who fled to Canada, says she became suicidal and was hospitalized after being bombarded with messages from Xinjiang police threatening her family in the troubled province.
“You should have been more cooperative. Don’t become the source of misfortune for your relatives and family in Toksun. You should be more considerate of your family,” read one message, allegedly from an official named “Kaysar.”
The 37-year-old believes she was targeted because she spoke out against authorities online, and has helped stateless Uighurs seek help abroad.
She received messages from relatives — including her younger sister — pleading with her to “cooperate” with authorities.
Mahsut is one of more than a dozen Uighur exiles AFP interviewed across four continents that gave access to scores of text and voice messages — purportedly from Chinese security operatives — demanding their silence or cooperation.
Together they point to a systemic effort to infiltrate diaspora communities, recruit informants, sow mistrust and stifle criticism of the regime.

Followed by sinister messages
Shir Muhammad Hasan managed to get to Australia in 2017. Having secured refugee status, he thought he was safe.
Little more than a year later, the sinister messages began to arrive.
“I suppose your family already told you that I have been searching for you?” read the first.
More texts followed, in turn demanding the 32-year-old turn over dossiers about his life, and then came persistent requests to arrange a time to “get to know each other better.”
“I told you to send me a brief introduction of yourself, but you didn’t,” the sender said in a local Uighur dialect, punctuated with a smattering of Mandarin Chinese, adding: “We should sit down and have a chat.”
The barrage lasted six months and then abruptly stopped, leaving Hasan in turmoil — unsure if and when the torment will begin again.
AFP has no way of independently verifying who sent these or similar messages. They were sent using encrypted WhatsApp accounts and linked to inactive Hong Kong cell numbers or in some cases “ID spoofed” numbers that mask the source.
The Chinese foreign ministry and the Xinjiang government did not respond to request for comment.
But many Uighurs abroad offer strikingly similar testimony: Their families in Xinjiang are approached, they then begin to send unusual questions or demands, before ultimately direct contact is made from suspected security officials via secure messaging services.
One Uighur man now living with his wife in the US said his family in Xinjiang were asked to “provide information about my school, status, how I was able to go overseas.”
“When I asked them ‘why do you need this information?’ they told me that they need to fill some kind of form,” he explained.
Other families in Xinjiang were asked for phone numbers of overseas relatives that allowed the assault of texts and phone messages to begin.

Sowing mistrust and friction
The harassment has had a devastating impact for many as they are shackled by fears for the fate of loved ones left behind if they do not comply.
Arslan Hidayat lives in Istanbul, which had opened its doors to fellow Turkic-speaking Muslims. He was not targeted directly, but nationalist trolls have bombarded his Facebook blog.
Australian-born, he wants to speak out, but older family members — including his mother-in-law, whose husband is in detention — believe silence will limit the authorities’ wrath.
China’s bid to create a network of informants has also sown mistrust and friction within Uighur communities abroad.
For much of the last decade, Uighur students who received a scholarship to study overseas were asked for a raft of sensitive information, and some believe they were effectively asked to become spies.
“When applying for the scholarship, the applicant has to fill in very detailed information about their family back in China, but also need to provide extensive information about their studies, life, and activities in the corresponding country,” said one PhD student now living in Australia.
“One condition of the scholarship is that the recipient has to keep close contact with the Chinese Embassy and a contact person from the Xinjiang Education Bureau.”
The student added: “It could be used to collect information about the applicants and their close friends in foreign soil, or even worse it’s the salary of spies disguised as scholarship.”

Methodical intimidation
According to James Leibold, an expert on ethnic relations in China and a professor at Melbourne’s La Trobe University, the intimidation is systematic and methodical.
“The reach of the Chinese party-state now is far more extensive, and it has, in some regards, violated the sovereignty of countries across the globe, by interfering in the affairs of citizens of different countries,” he warned.
Leibold added Uighurs with overseas connections are seen as a potential security risk: “The best way to deal with that was to send them back to Xinjiang where they could be monitored or ‘re-educated’.”
As for those who have moved overseas permanently, he said Beijing wants them “to stay quiet about this issue, not lobby politicians, not to speak with the media, not to cause trouble for the Chinese Embassy and consulates.”
Similar actions overseas have been reported against Tibetans, political dissidents, Taiwanese activists, adherents of the spiritual group Falun Gong as well as Chinese students overseas.
The assault has led some Uighurs — even those with foreign nationality or permanent residency abroad — to believe nowhere is safe from China’s police state.
In the past five years, Thailand and Egypt have rounded up Uighurs and sent them back to China. But even in open democracies such as New Zealand and Finland, the picture is bleak.
Shawudun Abdughupur fled to Auckland after witnessing inter-ethnic riots in July 2009 that left hundreds dead.
Despite now being a New Zealand citizen, he remains reluctant to speak publicly, fearing for himself and for his 78-year-old mother, who he believes is in a camp.
“I can’t say too much,” he told AFP, fighting back the tears in his first on-camera interview.
The 43-year-old added: “I don’t know if the New Zealand government can protect me. How can they protect me?“
After he refused to give details of his meetings with other Uighurs, he received this chilling message: “We can find you. We are in New Zealand.”

Call for democracies to ‘close ranks’
When Abdughupur reported the incident to the New Zealand police they treated it like any other nuisance call, referring him to the non-profit online safety organization Netsafe, who then referred him back to law enforcement.
New Zealand police, like several of their counterparts worldwide, said they could not discuss the cases for privacy reasons.
Halmurat Uyghur, a 35-year-old who lives north of Helsinki, said he reported threatening messages to the Finnish police on several occasions but nothing changed.
“I don’t feel safe, who knows what will happen next,” he said.
One former senior US national security official confirmed the issue of China pursuing so-called “fugitives” abroad had been raised with Beijing “through law enforcement channels and also at the top level.”
Current US officials acknowledged reports of Uighur intimidation in America but declined requests to comment on the record.
Ben Rhodes, who spent eight years as a senior national security aide during Barack Obama’s presidency said democracies could mitigate some of China’s actions but allies would need to “close ranks.”
Beijing was “usually intransigent about things that they felt dealt with internal matters,” he said.
He added: “The way to really deal with it would be for the United States to rally other countries to collectively stand up to the Chinese on this.”
 


India’s Hindus bathe in holy river defiled by pollution

Updated 5 sec ago
Follow

India’s Hindus bathe in holy river defiled by pollution

  • Thousands celebrated the festival of Chhath Puja for the Hindu sun god Surya, entering the stinking Yamuna waters to pray
  • A parliamentary report in February called the Yamuna ‘more of a toxic waterway than a river’
NEW DELHI: Sweeping aside thick toxic scum, thousands of Hindu devotees ignored court warnings Thursday against bathing in the sacred but sewage-filled Yamuna river, a grim display of environmental degradation in India’s capital.
Thousands celebrated the festival of Chhath Puja for the Hindu sun god Surya, entering the stinking waters to pray as the evening rays set in the sky.
A parliamentary report in February called the Yamuna “more of a toxic waterway than a river,” saying the foam clouds were formed from a potent chemical soup including laundry detergent and phosphates from fertilizers.
“Please understand you will fall sick,” a high court order said Wednesday, Indian media reported, restricting ritual bathing on health grounds. “We can’t allow you to go into the water.”
But housewife Krishnawati Devi, 45, said she was not worried.
“I believe the waters of the river are pure and blessed by the sun god himself,” she said. “Nothing will happen to me — god will take care of everything.”
Hindu faithful ignored the order, with women wrapped in fine saris and heavy jewelry wading into the grey waters.
White foam swirled around their feet. In places, it was so thick it looked like the river had frozen.
“Chhath is a festival of unflinching faith,” said Avinash Kumar, 58, a government office worker. “We can also offer prayers at home but it doesn’t feel the same as praying in the river.”
Others thumped drums and sang.
New Delhi’s authorities have poured in anti-foaming agents to disperse the froth, and used nets to sweep the scum away — but it has done nothing to clean the fetid water itself.
“It stinks, but it’s ok,” said 14-year-old schoolgirl Deepa Kumari. “What is important is that we get to celebrate in the river with our people.”
Rituals in the days-long festival culminate at dawn on Friday.
“I don’t bother about the pollution,” said Pooja Prasad, 20, a student. “The mother goddess will take care of all our troubles,” she added.
The sprawling megacity of some 30 million people is also smothered in poisonous smog — fueled by burning crop fields and vehicle exhaust fumes.
Levels of fine particulate matter — dangerous microparticles known as PM2.5 pollutants that enter the bloodstream through the lungs — have this week surged beyond 50 times the World Health Organization recommended daily maximum.
“Toxi-city,” broadcasters dubbed the capital.
City authorities have declared repeated efforts to clean the river.
From an icy source of a Himalayan glacier, the Yamuna feeds into the mighty Ganges, flowing more than 3,100 kilometers (1,925 miles) to the sea in the Bay of Bengal.
But barely 400 kilometers into that journey, the water passing New Delhi is already effectively dead.
The parliamentary report warned of an “excessive presence of heavy metals” and cancer-causing pollutants ranging from arsenic to zinc, from everything from batteries to pesticides.
“Contamination... transform it into a carrier of untreated industrial waste, garbage, agricultural run-off and municipal waste,” the report read.
“This has a profound effect on the well-being of the people.”
Government statistics say 80 percent of the pollution load is raw sewage, far exceeding permissible levels for bathing.
Some of the faithful have traditionally drunk the water.
Levels fluctuate, but in one spot in 2021 in south Delhi, fecal bacteria levels exceeded maximum health regulations by 8,800 times.
But many say they are frustrated at the situation.
“The river is sacred to us, but all the filth from the industrial belt nearby is being pumped into it,” added Kumar.
“Every year they say they are going to clean it, but nothing ever happens.”

Saudi doctors provide free eye surgery to hundreds of Sri Lankan patients

Updated 25 min 8 sec ago
Follow

Saudi doctors provide free eye surgery to hundreds of Sri Lankan patients

  • Doctors conduct 500 cataract removal procedures in Walasmulla on the southeastern coast of Sri Lanka
  • Campaign will then move to the eastern city of Kattankudy, where another 500 patients will be treated

COLOMBO: Hundreds of Sri Lankan patients are set to receive eye surgery and specialist care this week under a blindness prevention program launched by the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center.

The Saudi Noor Volunteer Program, running between Nov. 4 and 9, is organized by KSrelief in the town of Walasmulla on the southeastern coast of Sri Lanka, hundreds of kilometers away from the capital Colombo. On Nov. 10-17, the campaign will move to the city of Kattakundy, further east.

Cataracts are the most common cause of blindness in Sri Lanka. Patients often have to wait for years to have them removed under government programs. At private clinics, the cheapest lens replacement procedure is too expensive for many patients in poorer parts of the country.

“There is big demand since poor people can’t afford surgery privately, which costs 100,000 rupees ($340) per person. There are many cataract patients in Sri Lanka but the facilities are few. There are long waiting lists for surgery,” M.S.M. Thassim, chairman of the Association of Muslim Youths — KSrelief’s local partner — told Arab News.

Patients wait for KSrelief-funded eye surgery in Kattankudy, Sri Lanka, on Nov. 5, 2024. (Association of Muslim Youths)

“We are doing it in two places; the first part is Walasmulla, which is finishing on Nov. 9, and we have already completed 400 surgeries and 100 more to go. Then at Kattankudy, which begins on Nov. 10, where another 500 will be performed.”

Some of the patients were already blind before the intervention of the KSrelief medical team, whose members have been praised for being “people friendly” and “committed” to their mission.

“The patients are full of gratitude to the Saudi government and the King Salman center for the noble intervention that restored their eyesight,” Thassim said.

The two-week eye care campaign in Walasmulla and Kattakundy is part of the Saudi government’s long-standing efforts to combat blindness in developing countries.

In Sri Lanka alone, 31,000 patients have undergone Saudi-sponsored surgery since 2001.


World must better adapt to ‘climate calamity’: UN chief Guterres

Updated 54 min 36 sec ago
Follow

World must better adapt to ‘climate calamity’: UN chief Guterres

  • Global efforts to adapt to climate change have not kept pace as global warming accelerates the frequency and intensity of disasters
  • Antonio Guterres: ‘Climate calamity is the new reality. And we’re not keeping up’

PARIS: The world is nowhere near ready for the “calamity” being caused by climate change and must urgently prepare for even worse in the future, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Thursday.
Global efforts to adapt to climate change – from building defensive sea walls to planting drought-resistant crops – have not kept pace as global warming accelerates the frequency and intensity of disasters.
Floods, fires and other climate shocks have affected nearly every continent in a year the EU climate monitor says is almost certain to be the hottest ever recorded.
The amount of money going to poorer countries for adaptation measures was barely one-tenth of what they needed to disaster-proof their vulnerable economies, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said in a new assessment looking at 2022, the latest year for which data is available.
“Climate calamity is the new reality. And we’re not keeping up,” said Guterres at the launch of UNEP’s annual Adaptation Gap Report.
Rich nations are under pressure at this month’s UN COP29 summit to substantially increase the $100 billion they pledged for climate action in developing countries, including for adaptation.
But some donor governments are under fiscal and political pressure, and major new commitments of public money are not expected at the conference in Azerbaijan.
A UN biodiversity meeting this month failed to reach a funding agreement and the election of Donald Trump – who opposes global climate cooperation – hangs over COP29.
Most of the public money committed to climate change goes to reducing planet-warming emissions, not adapting to its long-term consequences.
Some $28 billion in public finance was paid to developing countries for climate adaptation in 2022.
This was an increase on the year prior, but still a drop in the ocean: UNEP estimates between $215 billion and $387 billion is needed annually for adaptation in developing countries.
Rich countries had pledged to double the amount by 2025 to roughly $40 billion a year but even this would leave an “extremely large” adaptation funding gap, UNEP said.
Climate disasters hit poorest communities hardest but the cost of inaction was no longer borne by them alone, said Patrick Verkooijen, CEO of the Global Center on Adaptation.
“From rising seas and extreme heat waves to relentless droughts and floods, the impacts of climate change now reach every corner of the globe. No nation, no community is immune,” he said in a statement.
Spanish authorities were accused of being inadequately prepared when a major storm brought flooding that killed over 200 people last month.
Climate scientists say that global warming is fueling more frequent and severe extreme weather.
“We can’t postpone protection. We must adapt – now,” Guterres said.


Vatican hopes for ‘wisdom’ from Trump

Updated 07 November 2024
Follow

Vatican hopes for ‘wisdom’ from Trump

  • Parolin’s comments were the first diplomatic reaction from the Holy See to Trump’s win for the White House against Democrat Kamala Harris

VATICAN CITY: The Vatican’s secretary of state congratulated US president-elect Donald Trump Thursday, while expressing doubt that the Republican had a “magic wand” to end conflicts quickly as promised during the campaign.
“We wish him a lot of wisdom because that is the main virtue of leaders according to the Bible,” Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in Rome.
Asked about Trump’s promise to end the war in Ukraine “within 24 hours,” Parolin replied: “Let’s hope, let’s hope. I believe that not even he has a magic wand.”
“To end wars, a lot of humility is needed, a lot of willingness is needed, it really is necessary to seek the general interests of humanity rather than concentrate on particular interests,” he said.
To overcome divisions in American society, Parolin said he hoped Trump would be “the president of the whole country.”
He also hoped he would be “a factor that reduces tension... in the current conflicts that are bloodying the world.”
Parolin’s comments were the first diplomatic reaction from the Holy See to Trump’s win for the White House against Democrat Kamala Harris.
Pope Francis has not reacted.
In September, the Argentine pope criticized both candidates, accusing them of being “against life” in different ways: for Harris’ support of abortion, and for Trump’s anti-migrant policies.
During his first term in the White House, in May 2017, Trump was received by the Pope at the Vatican for a half-hour meeting.


NATO chief hopes to tackle North Korea-Russia threat with Trump

Updated 07 November 2024
Follow

NATO chief hopes to tackle North Korea-Russia threat with Trump

  • ‘What we see more and more is that North Korea, Iran, China, and of course Russia are working together, working together against Ukraine’

BUDAPEST: NATO chief Mark Rutte said Thursday he aimed to work jointly with returning US leader Donald Trump in confronting the “dangerous new developments” linked to North Korea’s entry into the Russian war on Ukraine.
“What we see more and more is that North Korea, Iran, China, and of course Russia are working together, working together against Ukraine,” Rutte told reporters at a European leaders’ meeting in Budapest.
“This is more and more a threat, not only to the European part of NATO, but also to the United States — because Russia is delivering the latest technology into North Korea,” he warned.
“I look forward to sit down with Donald Trump to discuss how we can face these threats collectively,” Rutte said.
North Korea has become one of the strongest backers of Russia’s full-scale offensive in Ukraine, and the West has long accused Pyongyang of supplying artillery shells and missiles to Moscow.
Based on intelligence reports, Western powers now believe Pyongyang has deployed around 10,000 troops to Russia, suggesting deeper involvement in the conflict.
Iran meanwhile stands accused of supplying Russia with missiles and drones, while China is suspected of helping Moscow to circumvent Western sanctions on technologies for use in the war against Ukraine.