Turkey abandons Uighurs in favor of Chinese investment
Turkey was once the Uighurs’ prime defender, offering easy citizenship to emigrants and speaking out against their mistreatment, but the recent economic rapprochement between Turkey and China has led Ankara to abandon its ethnic brothers.
“If you don’t come back home now, you’ll never be able to see your homeland again.” Memet Atawulla received the threatening message last May on WeChat, China’s main messaging app. Though written in the Uighur language, he immediately knew it had come from the Chinese secret services.
“They wanted me to go back,” explains Atawulla, 31, as he sips a soda in one of Ankara’s glitzy cafes. Originally from the oasis town of Hotan in Xinjiang, northwest China, he moved to Turkey in 2016 to pursue a master’s degree on a scholarship program.
