As China woos the Taliban, Uyghurs in Afghanistan fear for their lives

Now, as the Taliban exerts control over the country, she fears she and other ethnic Uyghurs could be sent back to China by members of the militant group keen to curry favor with Beijing, which has been In the 1990s and 2000s, Xinjiang saw a rise in violent attacks, which Roberts said were often spontaneous outbursts of grievances toward the Chinese government’s repressive policies. But after the 9/11 attacks, Beijing tried to reframe all those incidents as being related to Islamic terrorism directed by external groups such as ETIM, he said.Few people had heard of ETIM until it was designated by the US government as a terrorist organization in 2002, during a period of increased anti-terrorism cooperation with China in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. That decision, however, has been questioned by experts and officials, who see it as a quid pro quo by Washington to gain Beijing’s support for the invasion of Iraq. Last year, amid worsening US-China relations, the Trump administration delisted ETIM as a terrorist group, drawing the ire of Beijing. The US State Department said the removal was because “for more than a decade, there has been no credible evidence that ETIM continues to exist.”ETIM’s founder Hasan Mahsum was killed in 2003 by troops in Pakistan, where he and his followers fled following the US bombing of Afghanistan. The group appears to have died with him, said Roberts.But by 2008, a successor group to ETIM, called the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), had emerged and threatened to attack the Beijing Olympics. The group is known to be affiliated with al Qaeda and later became a key player in the Syrian civil war.”They’ve been very prolific in terms of producing videos threatening Beijing, but there’s no evidence of them being able to carry out any attacks inside China,” Roberts said. But the Chinese government has continued to use the existence of the TIP — which Beijing still refers to by the name ETIM — to highlight the threat of terrorism and justify its ongoing crackdown in Xinjiang, said experts and Uyghur activists. ‘);$vidEndSlate.removeClass(‘video__end-slate–inactive’).addClass(‘video__end-slate–active’);}};CNN.autoPlayVideoExist = (CNN.autoPlayVideoExist === true) ? true : false;var configObj = {thumb: ‘none’,video: ‘world/2021/03/24/china-xinjiang-children-culver-pkg-intl-hnk-vpx.cnn’,width: ‘100%’,height: ‘100%’,section: ‘international’,profile: ‘expansion’,network: ‘cnn’,markupId: ‘body-text_60’,theoplayer: {allowNativeFullscreen: true},adsection: ‘const-article-inpage’,frameWidth: ‘100%’,frameHeight: ‘100%’,posterImageOverride: {“mini”:{“width”:220,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/210325101359-screengrab-xinjiang-lost-children-small-169.jpg”,”height”:124},”xsmall”:{“width”:307,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/210325101359-screengrab-xinjiang-lost-children-medium-plus-169.jpg”,”height”:173},”small”:{“width”:460,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/210325101359-screengrab-xinjiang-lost-children-large-169.jpg”,”height”:259},”medium”:{“width”:780,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/210325101359-screengrab-xinjiang-lost-children-exlarge-169.jpg”,”height”:438},”large”:{“width”:1100,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/210325101359-screengrab-xinjiang-lost-children-super-169.jpg”,”height”:619},”full16x9″:{“width”:1600,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/210325101359-screengrab-xinjiang-lost-children-full-169.jpg”,”height”:900},”mini1x1″:{“width”:120,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/210325101359-screengrab-xinjiang-lost-children-small-11.jpg”,”height”:120}}},autoStartVideo = false,isVideoReplayClicked = false,callbackObj,containerEl,currentVideoCollection = [],currentVideoCollectionId = ”,isLivePlayer = false,mediaMetadataCallbacks,mobilePinnedView = null,moveToNextTimeout,mutePlayerEnabled = false,nextVideoId = ”,nextVideoUrl = ”,turnOnFlashMessaging = false,videoPinner,videoEndSlateImpl;if (CNN.autoPlayVideoExist === false) {autoStartVideo = false;autoStartVideo = typeof CNN.isLoggedInVideoCheck === ‘function’ ? 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But even regular people like her could find themselves swept up in Beijing’s campaign against terror groups. Roberts said it is unclear that TIP has a significant presence in Afghanistan, although a small number of its members are believed to be living in the country. If the Taliban were to deport anyone to China, it would most likely be ordinary Uyghurs rather than the TIP members they have had long-term relations with, he said.”If they want to show Beijing they were being receptive to its demands (for repatriation), why send a friend they know when they could just send any random Uyghurs in Afghanistan and suggest they are a threat to Beijing?” Roberts said.Despite having lived for decades in Afghanistan, the Uyghurs are considered outsiders, and unlike thousands of people airlifted to safety by the US and its allies, they have no country to help negotiate their exit.”They don’t really have anybody to advocate on their behalf, to help them get out of the country,” Roberts said. Tuhan said she and her family don’t even have passports, so they have limited options to leave Afghanistan, even if another country was willing to take them. “They don’t give passport for free, and we can’t afford it. But now they have stopped issuing the passports anyway,” she said.”It has been 45 years since we fled here. We have grown old without seeing a good day,” she said. “Hopefully our kids could have a better life. That’s all we want. We just want to be saved from this oppression.”