沈默，只求自保的回族。
The
campaign began quietly. Students studying abroad were told to return home. Many
did, and their classmates didn’t hear from them afterwards. For those who
needed extra incentive to get moving, police detained their families back home.
Finally, the ones who refused to comply were rounded up by force.
China is seeking out and
recalling members of its ethnic Uighur minority population scattered across the
globe. In the case of
Egypt, Chinese authorities have relied on Egyptian security to seek out and
round up ethnically Uighur Chinese citizens in Cairo. Egyptian security personnel have detained
dozens of ethnically Uighur Chinese citizens, some of whom have already been repatriated to China.
Many details remain unclear, including the legal residential or student status
of some of the Uighurs in Cairo. But the People’s Republic of China’s ability
to demand the return of whole groups of minority citizens—without a clear and
compelling case for their repatriation, and without any semblance of due
process—should be worrying
to the international community. Silence in the face of this type of
extraterritorial action makes
third-party nations complicit in these individuals’ return. Silence suggests that any future
actions taken in additional countries would also not be condemned; silence lets
those countries’ local security forces know that they need not concern
themselves with international criticism.
Starting at the end of
January, according to Radio Free Asia (RFA),
local officials in the
Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region ordered Uighur students studying abroad to
return home. Local
security and government officials told RFA that the Xinjiang regional
government had launched the recall in order to investigate students’ political
views, and “educate them about our country’s laws and current developments.”
