When President Barack Obama in September secured passage of a U.N. Security Council resolution requiring nations to prevent their citizens from traveling abroad to participate in acts of terrorism, it was mostly hailed as a landmark achievement to counter the phenomenon of foreign fighters in Syria. But as Foreign Policy reported at the time, human rights groups feared that countries such as China might use the measure to crack down on their minorities. Recent events in Shanghai may be proving them right.
On Wednesday, Jan. 13, police there announced that they had arrested 10 Turks and two Chinese citizens accused of providing doctored passports to a group of nine ethnic Uighurs attempting to travel to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Syria. According to Chinese media reports cited by the New York Times, police found what were described as audio and video materials on the Uighurs having to do with terrorism.
Uighurs hail mostly from the Chinese autonomous region of Xinjiang, where Beijing has imported millions of Han Chinese in an attempt to solidify its rule there. Using torture, murder, and re-education camps, the government has brutally repressed Islam in the region. Although some Uighur separatists have carried out terrorist attacks in China and a small contingent has traveled to Syria and joined up with radical Islamists there, human rights groups contend that Beijing has used the threat of terrorism from these groups to justify a broad campaign of widespread repression.
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