SPECIAL REPORT-China controls dissidents abroad through relatives back home

(For more Reuters Special Reports, double-click on SPECIAL/ )
By Paul Mooney and David Lague
MONTREAL/MUNICH, Dec 30 (Reuters) - Erkin Kurban, an ethnic
Uighur from China's frontier region of Xinjiang, left his
homeland for Canada back in 1999. When he returned to Xinjiang
for a visit in April 2013, he had not seen his family for more
than 13 years. Kurban was especially excited about seeing his
85-year-old mother.
His joy was short-lived. On the third day after his arrival,
an agent of China's pervasive security police summoned him for a
meeting at a police station. Over the next 10 hours, Kurban, a
55-year-old long-distance truck driver, was grilled on his
activities in Canada and the United States. His interrogators
urged him to send reports on fellow Uighur exiles when he went
back, leaving him with a stark choice: Spy for China or never
come back to see his family again.
The interrogators had a particular target in mind. For 90
minutes they demanded information on Washington-based Rebiya
Kadeer, the most prominent leader of the Uighur community in
exile and an outspoken critic of China's treatment of the
Turkic-speaking Muslim people in Xinjiang.
"They asked me who was active in the leadership and who was
doing what," said Kurban, as he steered his 53-foot tractor
trailer on a long haul trip from California to Montreal. "They
also wanted to know what Rebiya Kadeer was doing and what
projects she had."
Kurban's interrogation is part of a global campaign of
intelligence gathering and harassment by China against the
Uighur community abroad. The effort is aimed at neutralizing the
community's leaders, whom Beijing accuses of plotting
independence, and sowing distrust and discord among its members.
With the power to treat family members back home as hostages,
Chinese security services have strong leverage over Uighurs
living overseas, thousands of whom have fled what they say is
persecution by the authorities in Xinjiang.
China's suppression of political dissidents and restive
minorities at home is well known. Less documented are Beijing's
extensive and growing efforts to stifle these same populations
abroad, including Chinese-born citizens of Western democracies.
This examination of China's methods of exerting control over
Uighur exiles in North America, Europe and Australia is based on
interviews with exiled Uighur leaders, court records of
espionage trials and the findings of asylum cases.
In Germany and Sweden, Chinese spies - some Uighurs
themselves - have been convicted of espionage against local
Uighur communities. Relatives of exiled Uighur leaders in the
United States and Canada have been jailed back in Xinjiang. One
prominent Uighur leader said he has been detained or denied
entry on traveling to some Western countries after China accused
him of terrorism.
"Some might think that once you flee China, you are free,"
said Kayum Masimov, president of the Uyghur Canadian Society.
"But you are never free."
In response to questions from Reuters about the targeting of
Uighurs, China's Foreign Ministry said Xinjiang is experiencing
one of its "fastest periods" of development. "There will always
be some people with ulterior motives and forces who do not wish
to see a stable and harmonious Xinjiang," the ministry said.
"Their plots are doomed to fail."

'100 PERCENT' INFILTRATION
Ultimately, Uighur activists say, the goal of China's global
dragnet is less the collection of high quality intelligence and
more an effort to intimidate the exile community. Prominent
Uighurs say China's infiltration of their ranks is even more
successful than its penetration of Tibetan exile groups critical
of Beijing's policies in Tibet.
"If the infiltration of the Tibetans is 80 percent, then the
infiltration of the Uighurs is 100 percent," said Enver Tohti, a
former cancer surgeon from Xinjiang who was granted refugee
status in the United Kingdom in 1999. "So far here in the U.K.,
I've had four Uighurs confess to me that they have been spying."
In Xinjiang, which borders Kazakhstan, the Chinese
authorities are battling to contain unrest that has seen
hundreds of people die in clashes in recent years. Beijing
blames the violence on Islamist militants. Human rights groups
say China has failed to produce convincing evidence that it
faces a cohesive militant force. Harsh controls on the religion
and culture of Uighurs are the primary reason for the violent
outbreaks, they say.
China denies that repression takes place and has blamed a
number of lethal attacks in recent years on militants from
Xinjiang. In the southwestern city of Kunming, 31 people were
killed at a train station on March 1, 2014, by knife-wielding
assailants. In March this year, China executed three people for
their role in the attack. The government said the culprits were
separatists from Xinjiang.
Beijing has seized on the attacks as proof that it faces a
significant threat of Islamist radicalism, and has labeled a
group of Uighur leaders, some citizens of Western countries, as
terrorists.
These allegations have hindered the travel of exile leaders
such as Dolkun Isa, executive chairman of the Munich-based World
Uyghur Congress, the leading Uighur group which advocates
democracy and human rights in Xinjiang. China named Isa, a
former student activist in Xinjiang, on a list of Uighur
terrorists in 2003. Germany accepted his claim of refugee status
and granted him a passport in 2006.
That status hasn't always helped. Isa says he has been
detained or refused entry when traveling to countries including
Switzerland, the United States and South Korea. He has since
been allowed into Switzerland and the United States, which he
said granted him a 10-year multiple entry visa in 2012. Isa says
he condemns all terrorism.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said Kadeer and Isa have
colluded with terrorist forces, but did not provide any
evidence.

TROUBLE IN HUNGARY
In the detention cases, Uighurs say some foreign governments
are responding to diplomatic pressure from an increasingly
wealthy and powerful China.
The Munich-based vice president of the World Uyghur
Congress, Umit Hamit, a German citizen, said he didn't expect
trouble in Hungary, a country he had visited eight times in 10
years without any problems.
On May 30, 2013, that changed: He said he was detained while
leading a Uighur youth delegation to Budapest. Police cordoned
off and searched the motel where his 28-member group was staying
as if they were looking for a bomb, according to Hamit's account
of the incident. "They didn't find anything," he said in an
interview in Munich.
After contacting the German embassy, Hamit was released, but
the Hungarians kept up the pressure. He said he was told by the
police that he had one hour to leave the country.
"I told them I don't have a car here," Hamit says. "They
said, 'Okay, we'll give you two hours.'"
The World Uyghur Congress later said it suspected Hungarian
authorities were acting on false allegations from China that
Hamit was a terrorist. The Chinese Foreign Ministry had no
comment on the incident.
Economic ties between Hungary and China have blossomed in
recent years. In June, Hungary became the first European country
to sign a cooperation agreement with Beijing on its "Silk Road"
initiative to develop trade and transport infrastructure across
Asia and beyond. Last month, a consortium led by China Railway
Group was awarded a 10 billion yuan ($1.54 billion) contract for
building the Hungarian section of a railway that will link
Budapest with the Serbian capital Belgrade.
China's growing economic clout, and the diplomatic leverage
that has brought, are enabling Beijing to impose its will far
beyond its borders. Reuters reported this year how Beijing is
using intimidation tactics at the United Nations Human Rights
Council in Geneva to silence critics there. Another article
documented how China is backing a Buddhist sect that operates in
the West as part of its strategy to discredit the Dalai Lama.
In the case of the Uighurs, China's efforts at control now
stretch thousands of miles beyond Xinjiang.
In the past year, Uighurs fleeing Xinjiang have reached
Turkey via Southeast Asia. Not all have made it. In July,
Thailand forcibly repatriated more than 100 Uighurs to China.
The move was condemned by the United States, which said the
Uighurs could be harshly treated back in China. Thai Prime
Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said it wasn't the fault of his
government if the Uighurs faced problems back home.

SPYING FOR CHINA
Extensive spying on Uighur exiles was the focus of a 2011
court case in Munich. The Bavarian capital is home to about 650
Uighurs, one of the biggest single communities in the West, said
Isa of the World Uyghur Congress, or WUC, who gave evidence at
the trial.
Prosecutors charged three Chinese men with illegal "secret
service activity," Munich court records show. One of the
suspects, a 62-year-old Chinese man identified only as "G" in
the records, was accused of "spying on the Uighur community in
Germany and sending the information he gathered to the Chinese
intelligence service."
According to the court records, the man "regularly reported
to his intelligence service contact person - by telephone or in
personal meetings - on planned Uighur demonstrations and events.
He also passed on information about Uighur exiles and the WUC."
The three men were given suspended sentences for spying,
according to a Bavarian Interior Ministry annual report. "The
Chinese intelligence service case officers operating under the
cover of diplomats working at the Chinese consulate general in
Munich subsequently left Germany," the report said.
Isa says security officials in China are still collecting
information. "We know the Chinese government and Chinese police
call Uighur people here in Munich," he said. China's Foreign
Ministry didn't comment on the case.
In Australia, concerns over Chinese surveillance of Uighurs
have helped refugees seeking asylum.
In a review of an asylum application for an unnamed Uighur
man in September 2011, Australia's Refugee Review Tribunal
concluded that the activities of Uighurs living in the country
were likely being reported to Chinese authorities. As a result,
it found, "the applicant may be at risk of persecution for his
participation in these activities if he were to return to
China." The tribunal ruled that the applicant was entitled to
asylum.
The tribunal also cited the sworn evidence of Alim Seytoff,
president of the Uyghur American Association. Seytoff had
testified in an earlier case that "there is an extensive network
of spies including some Uyghurs, who regularly monitor the
activities of Uyghurs throughout the Western world and report on
their activities to the PRC (People's Republic of China)
authorities."

THE PRICE OF ACTIVISM
For China, the exile Uighur leadership poses a challenge to
Beijing's narrative on Xinjiang. Leaders like Kadeer regularly
highlight the trials and imprisonment of Uighur activists,
including Ilham Tohti, an economics professor who was jailed for
life on charges of separatism in September 2014. The leadership
also organizes protests outside Chinese embassies in Western
capitals and lobbies politicians in their adopted countries.
China's Foreign Ministry said that in the case of lham
Tohti, "the facts of the crime are clear and there is cast iron
evidence. During the trial, the rights of Ilham (Tohti) and his
defending team were fully guaranteed." Foreign journalists and
diplomats were barred from the courtroom during the trial.
There is a price to pay for activism, especially for the
highest-profile Uighur leaders. And the cost often falls on
their families back in Xinjiang. Some relatives are jailed or
beaten. Others are prevented from ever reuniting with their
exiled children or siblings.
"They use your family ties to stop you from doing whatever
you're doing and to get you to do what they want you to do,"
Mehmet Tohti, the founder of the Uighur organization in Canada,
said in an interview in Toronto.
Tohti said he has not been allowed back to Xinjiang in close
to 25 years, and his parents have been blocked from leaving
China to visit him. Even extended members of his family cannot
obtain Chinese passports to travel abroad, he said. The Foreign
Ministry didn't comment on Tohti's case.
Even minor figures in the exile community feel the pressure.
When truck driver Kurban returned in 2013 to Urumqi, the
regional capital of Xinjiang, he says his interrogators had a
file on him. They knew he'd been in Montreal for 13 years. And
they knew the names of many Uighurs living in Canada.
When Kurban protested that he was a Canadian citizen, he
said, one of the interrogators replied: "When you're here, we
can do whatever we want." At one point, an interrogator asked
for his Canadian passport. "He looked at it and then threw it to
the ground," said Kurban.
When quizzed about Rebiya Kadeer, the Uighur exile leader
living in the United States, he said he told the interrogators
he was poorly educated and had no knowledge of her activities.
That wasn't true. Kurban and Kadeer say they knew each other
when they both lived in Urumqi. Kurban later participated in
Uighur political events in Washington after arriving in Canada
in 1999.
Kurban, like most Uighur exiles, refers to Xinjiang as East
Turkestan, a politically charged term that Beijing views as
tantamount to separatism. He says that mention of Kadeer's name
in public is dangerous in China. Uighurs call her Ana (Mama)
instead. He said he still gets calls from Xinjiang asking after
her: "How is Ana? How is her health?"
His interrogators in Xinjiang "asked again, again, and
again" about Kadeer, he said. "And I repeated, repeated and
repeated: Rebiya Kadeer is an old woman. Why is the Communist
Party afraid of her?"

OUTSPOKEN CRITIC
Outside China, the 69-year-old Kadeer is Beijing's most
prominent Uighur critic. She became a millionaire property and
trading entrepreneur and one of China's richest women as the
country's economic reforms took hold in the 1980s. At first she
was embraced by the Communist Party. She became a member of
China's prestigious but largely rubber-stamp parliament, the
National People's Congress.
After Kadeer started speaking out against Chinese abuses in
Xinjiang, she was detained in 1999. She was arrested on her way
to meet a U.S. Congressional delegation in Xinjiang and
sentenced to eight years for "stealing state secrets," according
to the website of the World Uyghur Congress.
Ultimately, Kadeer spent almost six years in jail. In 2005,
under strong international pressure, Beijing allowed her to
leave for the United States. Since 2006, she has been president
of the World Uyghur Congress.
For that activism, Kadeer says her family has paid a high
price. Some of her children were jailed in China after she
arrived in the United States and ignored a Chinese demand that
she refrain from getting involved in politics.
One son, Alim Abdureyim, was given a seven-year sentence,
and a second, Kahar Abdureyim, was fined after both were found
guilty of tax evasion in 2006, according to the World Uyghur
Congress website. The two were sentenced on November 27, 2006 -
the day Kadeer was elected president of the Congress, the
website said. A third son, Ablikim Abdureyim, was sentenced to
nine years in jail in 2007 for engaging in secessionist
activities.
"They didn't commit any crime," Kadeer told Reuters at her
office in Washington. "They just happened to be my children."
Because of her political activism, she says, family members are
unable to find work and are prohibited from leaving Xinjiang.
"It's like living in an open prison," she said.
Kurban says his interrogators put him through four hours of
questioning about Kadeer and other exiles. When it was over, he
was told he must return to Canada within 48 hours.
As he got ready to leave the police station, Kurban says, he
decided he would pretend to cooperate with the security officers
to prolong his stay. That led to another six hours of
questioning, during which the security officers filled 10
A4-size pieces of paper with his answers, he said.
At the end, he signed the document, affirming it was an
accurate report. "But I had lied about everything," Kurban said.
All through the interrogation, Kurban's two younger brothers
waited for him in the police station. "When I got out they were
white with fear," he said.
For the remainder of his almost two-month stay, he visited
the police once a week.
Before leaving Xinjiang, Kurban said the security agents
gave him a mobile telephone number in China and told him he
could call at any time. Just before he departed, a Uighur
security officer offered him rewards if he cooperated after
returning home. One enticement was the offer of a permanent
residency card, which would have made it easier for him to
return home and travel around.
Kurban had no intention of cooperating. "I told my mother I
won't come back again," he said. "She knew already it was the
last time I'd see her."
When he returned to Canada, Kurban called Kadeer and told
her the whole story. He also contacted the Canadian Security
Intelligence Service and did the same.
A month after he got back, one of Kurban's interrogators
called and asked if he had information to provide. Kurban said
he stalled, explaining he had just gotten home and had been
busy. Over the next four or five months, he was called several
times. Each time, he said, he made excuses. The calls have
stopped, for now.

<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Read this Special Report online, with photos and graphics: http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/china-uighur/
How Sony sanitized the new Adam Sandler movie to please Chinese
censors http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/china-film/
At U.N., China uses intimidation tactics to silence its critics
http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/china-softpower-rights/
Beijing's covert radio network airs China-friendly news across
Washington, and the world http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/china-radio/
China co-opts a Buddhist sect in global effort to smear Dalai
Lama http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/china-dalailama/
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>
(David Lague reported from Hong Kong, Munich, Berlin and
London. Paul Mooney reported from Montreal, Toronto, Bangkok,
Washington and Tracy, California. Additional reporting by Greg
Torode and Arshad Mohammed in Washington, Ben Blanchard in
Beijing, Paul Carrel in Berlin, Joern Poltz in Munich, Simon C.
Johnson in Stockholm, Toby Sterling and Anthony Deutsch in
Amsterdam, Tom Miles in Geneva, Krisztina Than in Budapest, Leah
Schnurr in Ottawa and Jack Kim in Seoul. Editing by Peter
Hirschberg.)