(MENAFN- Arab Times) Uighurs from China's far western region of Xinjiang who have travelled to Turkey via Southeast Asia are being trained in Syria and Iraq with the aim of bringing jihad back to China, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Uighurs, a largely Muslim ethnic minority that calls Xinjiang home, have left China in recent years. Rights groups say such migrants are mostly fleeing ethnic violence in Xinjiang and Chinese controls on their religion and culture. Hundreds of people have died in unrest in Xinjiang in the last three years, blamed by Beijing on Islamist militants. China's Foreign Ministry said that the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a group Beijing says seeks an independent state in Xinjiang, finds followers from the region to seek training in the Middle East with the intent of returning to wage jihad. "Terrorist extremists from within China's borders are recruited to illegally exit the country. Through Southeast Asian countries they go to Turkey and from there head to the so-called holy wars in Syria and Iraq, receive terrorist training and bide their time to return," the ministry said in a statement sent to Reuters.
Damages
"This not only seriously damages China's national security, but also is a threat to the security and stability of other relevant countries and regions," it said. The comments come as China steps ups efforts to bolster its claims that some of the 109 Uighurs deported from Thailand back to China last week posed a security threat, amid global concern about their wellbeing. Their deportation sparked anger in Turkey, home to a large Uighur diaspora, and fed concern among rights groups and the United States that they could be mistreated upon their return. In March, Xinjiang's Communist Party chief Zhang Chunxian said that authorities had busted "extremists" that had returned from overseas wars, but authorities have offered little evidence to support their claims. Many foreign experts, as well as rights groups and exiles, have questioned whether ETIM exists as the coherent group China claims it is. "To strengthen so-called diplomatic victories, China meticulously fabricates lies to obtain its own political goals, and will force those repatriated to serve as propaganda tools," Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the exiled group the World Uyghur Congress, said in an emailed statement.
China formally detained nine foreign tourists including South Africans, Britons and an Indian national, the Foreign Ministry and a South African charity said, for suspected ties to a "terror group" after authorities accused them of watching banned videos. China's Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that 11 others would be deported and the nine were "criminally detained" € a term meaning suspects have likely been charged and could be prosecuted. All are suspected of violating the law, the ministry said, without specifying what they had done.
Law enforcement authorities in Inner Mongolia, where the group was detained, are in touch with diplomatic and consular officials from the countries, the ministry added. Imtiaz Sooliman, head of the Gift of the Givers Foundation, a South African charity, quoted Chinese authorities as saying some of those arrested had been watching propaganda videos from a banned group while in their hotel room. Family members of some of the detainees asked Gift of the Givers, which has conducted hostage negotiations, to speak to the press on their behalf.
Shameel Joosub, chief executive of South African telecoms firm Vodacom Group Ltd, said members of his family were among those detained. Sooliman said the group - five South Africans, three Britons and one Indian national - also included a veteran of the African National Congress' military wing, which was co-founded by Nelson Mandela. "There's no way possible that they were part of any terrorist group," Sooliman said. A British Foreign Office spokeswoman said: "Consular staff have visited the group to provide assistance and we are liaising with Chinese authorities." The embassy of South Africa declined to comment. An Indian embassy spokesman said he had no information on the matter. The group was on a 47-day historical tour of the country when they were detained at an airport in the Inner Mongolian city of Erdos.
Their tour operator received no word from Chinese authorities and sought them out two days later, Sooliman said, when he had not heard from the group and realised something had gone "horribly wrong". The incident coincides with a visit to China by South African Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa. Gift of the Givers said it called on Ramaphosa to raise the issue with Chinese leaders. A representative travelling with Ramaphosa could not immediately be reached for comment.
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