Tens of thousands of Uyghurs have found refuge in Turkey from persecution in Xinjiang. For many, Istanbul has become their second homeland. But they no longer feel really safe on the Bosphorus since Erdogan started flirting with Beijing.
Ömer Faruk is a serious man with a straight posture and a clear voice. The Uyghur family man has prepared himself for the meeting in Istanbul's Sefaköy district. He has brought pictures of his mother in a wheelchair and the baby photos of two of his daughters to the interview in the store where the 31-year-old sells Uyghur books and children's toys. The two girls were one and three years old when he fled his home in Xinjiang with his wife. He has not seen them since.
Faruk was in Saudi Arabia for work in 2016 when his wife called him from Xinjiang: Chinese police had come to confiscate her passports. Faruk advised her to stall the authorities and book a flight to Turkey with the two older children. The two younger daughters stayed behind with their mother-in-law, but she was detained in a camp shortly thereafter. Since then, contact with her has been severed - as well as with the rest of his family.
"My mother and siblings deleted me on WeChat," Faruk says. "They had to do that to avoid putting themselves in danger. I'm probably considered a terrorist in China." Faruk shows pictures of his brothers. They had invested in multimillion-dollar construction projects, he says. They, too, were arrested, taken to re-education camps, and their assets were confiscated. read more