AFP
Uighur activist leader Rebiya Kadeer, pictured in in Washington, DC, in 2011 (AFP/File, Nicholas Kamm)
BEIJING — An exile group has urged Beijing to explain the fate of 20 ethnic Uighurs who escaped to Cambodia but were deported back to China, amid reports some were sentenced to death or life in jail.
The deportees, members of the mainly Muslim minority Uighur group who have long complained of oppression in Xinjiang, fled China after ethnic rioting in the remote, northwestern region in 2009.
They applied for UN refugee status in Cambodia, but were forcibly repatriated back to China in December 2009, in a move that triggered strong international condemnation.
Cambodia's decision to deport the Uighurs was quickly followed by a 1.2-billion-dollar aid and loan package from Beijing. China has rejected accusations of a link between the two.
According to the World Uyghur Congress, China has refused to confirm the whereabouts of members of the group despite media reports that four were sentenced to death after their return, while another 14 were jailed for life.
"Uighurs forcibly returned to China are in extreme risk of torture, detention and enforced disappearance," Rebiya Kadeer, president of the Munich-based exile group, said in a statement emailed to AFP.
"We call once again on international governments to pressure the Chinese authorities to immediately disclose the whereabouts of all the extradited Uighurs and to provide the charges, if any, that have been made against them."
In the latest unconfirmed sentencing, a deportee named Musa Muhamad was sentenced to 17 years in prison by a court in Xinjiang's Kashgar city on October 20, according to Radio Free Asia.
The report said it was unclear what charges the 25-year-old faced because it was a closed trial.
Calls to the court went unanswered on Friday, as did calls to Xinjiang's regional judicial department.
China has said the Uighurs were wanted in connection with rioting that erupted in July 2009 in the regional capital of Urumqi between Uighurs and China's majority Han ethnic group which left nearly 200 people dead.
The Uighurs had expressed fears of persecution and torture if they were sent home to China, which implemented a massive security crackdown in Xinjiang following the 2009 violence.
At the time, the UN special rapporteur on torture called the expulsion from Cambodia of the Uighurs "a blatant violation" of anti-torture rules and urged an independent probe as well as access to the group should they be detained.
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