Emin Avundukluoglu
27 January 2021•Update: 12 March 2021
ANKARA
A Turkish opposition leader on Wednesday spoke out against an extradition agreement between Turkey and China, warning it could endanger Turkic Uighurs’ efforts to speak out.
Meral Aksener, head of the Good (IYI) Party, was referring to a treaty signed between Ankara and Beijing in 2017, which still awaits a nod from parliament.
"I am wondering if they will dare to put this on the Foreign Affairs Committee agenda," she told her parliamentary group.
Anyone who submits the pact to parliament will sign onto “the atrocities against our [Uighur] kin, and will carry it as a brand of shame for life," she added.
China has been accused of discrimination against Uighurs, a Muslim minority group in its northwestern Xinjiang autonomous region.
Rights groups say it has held up to a million Uighurs in detention centers, which the state calls "re-education camps."
Many have fled mainland China, settling in countries abroad, including Turkey.
On Jan. 19, on his last full day in office, then-US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused China of committing “ongoing” genocide against the Uighurs.
A 2018 Human Rights Watch report detailed a Chinese government campaign of "mass arbitrary detention, torture, forced political indoctrination, and mass surveillance of Xinjiang's Muslims."
China, however, has repeatedly denied allegations that it is operating detention camps in its northwestern autonomous region, claiming instead that they are "re-educating" Uighurs.
