China's atrocities on Uighur Muslims, living in Xinjiang are known to the world. Now, leaked documents from the province show that across Europe, exiled Uighurs report surveillance by Beijing and threats of harm to their relatives in the region if they make noise about Chinese repression.
According to the Hill, the leaked documents from Xinjiang show the Chinese government's reasons for detaining several hundred Uighurs.
The Karakax list contains personal data on more than 300 individuals with relatives abroad. The Chinese government has flagged "people who leave the country and do not return" as a security risk in Xinjiang, because of their possible ties to exiled groups deemed as "separatists" by Beijing.
The World Uyghur Congress (WUC), which works to protect the diaspora's rights, has claimed that Beijing targets Uighurs living in the West and demands information on their community, promising safety for their relatives in Xinjiang in return.
The Uighurs are a majority in the Xinjiang province, situated in western part of China and is officially designated as an autonomous region.
Many international human rights orgsations have accused China of cracking down on the Uighurs by sending them to mass detention camps, interfering in their religious activities and sending members of the community to undergo some form of forceful re-education or indoctrination.
Kerim Zair, a Uighur who moved from Norway to London, said he received an anonymous call few years ago. "They requested that I work for them. I rejected them. ... I don't know how they got my number," Zair said.
Classified documents known as the China Cables, accessed last year by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, threw light on how the Chinese government uses technology to control Uighurs worldwide.
China put a million or more Uighurs and other Muslim minorities into detention camps and prisons in Xinjiang over the last three years under President Xi Jinping's directives to "show absolutely no mercy" in the struggle against terrorism, infiltration and separatism", revealed the leaked documents released in US media.
Over 400 pages of documents of the Chinese government released by The New York Times, however, do not record Xi directly ordering the creation of the detention facilities. They mention that he ascribed Xinjiang's instability to the widespread influence of toxic beliefs and demanded they be eradicated, as per an article by Austin Ramzy for the US daily.
( With inputs from ANI )