{"id":4209,"date":"2018-10-15T13:45:55","date_gmt":"2018-10-15T13:45:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iuhrdf.org\/en\/2018\/10\/15\/malaysias-mahathir-uighurs-freed-because-they-did-nothing-wrong\/"},"modified":"2018-10-15T13:45:55","modified_gmt":"2018-10-15T13:45:55","slug":"malaysias-mahathir-uighurs-freed-because-they-did-nothing-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/malaysias-mahathir-uighurs-freed-because-they-did-nothing-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"Malaysia’s Mahathir: Uighurs freed because they did nothing wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Malaysia<\/a> freed 11 ethnic Uighur Muslims who fled to the Southeast Asian nation after a Thai jailbreak because they did nothing wrong, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said on Monday.<\/span><\/p>\n

China<\/a> – which had asked for their extradition – said last week it “resolutely” opposed Malaysia’s decision to release the 11 Uighurs and send them to Turkey.<\/span><\/p>\n

“They have done nothing wrong in this country, so they are released,” Mahathir said in brief comments to reporters in parliament, the first from the Malaysian government since their release.<\/span><\/p>\n

Malaysia’s move was likely to strain ties with China, which have already been tested since Mahathir won a stunning election victory in May and <\/span>cancelled<\/span> more than $20bn worth of projects awarded to Chinese companies.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Prosecutors in Muslim-majority Malaysia dropped charges against the Uighurs<\/a> on humanitarian grounds, their lawyer said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The men were detained and charged with illegally entering Malaysia after the prison break in November 2017, during which they punched holes in a prison wall and used blankets as ladders.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some Western missions sought to dissuade Malaysia from sending the Uighurs to China, which has been accused of persecuting the Muslim minority.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tight controls<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n

Beijing accuses “separatist extremists” among the Uighur minority of plotting attacks on China’s Han majority in the restive far-western region of Xinjiang and elsewhere.<\/span><\/p>\n

China has been accused of rights abuses in Xinjiang, torture of Uighur detainees, and tight controls on their religion and culture. Beijing denies wrongdoing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the years, hundreds, possibly thousands, of Uighurs have escaped the unrest by<\/span>travelling<\/span> clandestinely via Southeast Asia to Turkey.<\/span>The United Nations has said about <\/span>one million Muslims<\/span><\/a> in Xinjiang have been rounded up and held in so-called “re-education” <\/span><\/span>centres<\/span><\/span> – camps the Uighurs claim are intended to replace the next generation’s Uighur identity with a Chinese one.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Malaysia freed 11 ethnic Uighur Muslims who fled to the Southeast Asian nation after a Thai jailbreak because they did nothing wrong, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said on Monday. China – which…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4208,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-4209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4209"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=4209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}