Nursimangul Abdureshid, a 34-year-old Uyghur, found refuge in Istanbul, while her brother was sentenced to 15 years and 11 months in prison in China, Istanbul, Turkey, May 4, 2022. EMRAH GUREL / AP
Rumors had been circulating for several months. Gradually, some news outlets reported on arrests and expulsions of Uyghur refugees by Ankara authorities. One such case was Hocamniyazov Kurbancan, who possessed a permanent residency permit in Turkey, but was arrested by police upon his return from a pilgrimage to Mecca shortly before the summer of 2024 and sent to a deportation center. There were also the cases of Mahemuti Anayeti and Aierken Abuduwaili, for whom Istanbul administrative courts ordered direct deportation to China in mid-March, breaking with the previous practice of expulsion via third countries. Their lawyers have appealed. These stories have called into question Ankara's previously open-door policy toward the Uyghurs.
For years, the Islamist-nationalist government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan presented itself as a protector of this Chinese ethnic minority, which it considered a "brotherly people" within the broader Muslim and Turkic family. In 2009, after bloody crackdowns on riots, the Turkish head of state did not hesitate to condemn a "kind of genocide," and in 2019, his foreign ministry described the detention of Uyghurs in "concentration camps" as "a disgrace to humanity."
