CNA Staff, May 20, 2020 / 15:00 pm
The Chinese government is attempting to extradite a Uighur man who fled the country to Turkey in 2014, according to a dossier obtained by Axios. The disclosure sheds new light on Communist Party persecution of religious and ethnic minorities, even beyond Chinese borders.
The man, Enver Turdi, left the Xinjiang region of China in 2014 on a tourist visa. He left China after a man he worked with relaying information to Radio Free Asia was detained. The following year, the Chinese Embassy in Turkey refused to issue Turdi a new passport, meaning that he could not renew his residency permit to legally stay in the country.
According to the 92-page dossier, published by Axios on Wednesday, China requested that Turkey extradite Turdi in May 2016. The dossier contains other documents from the following year, when the Turkish Ministry of Justice agreed to remove Turdi from the country.
In 2017, Turdi was placed in a deportation facility for one year, as he did not have a residency permit. His case has not yet been decided by the Turkish court system.