Amnesty International says it has heard from a Uyghur student it said had been missing after arriving in Hong Kong earlier this month.
The human rights group issued a statement last week saying Abuduwaili Abudureheman had not been heard from after traveling to Hong Kong from South Korea on May 10 to visit a friend. Amnesty said Abudureheman texted a friend telling him he was being interrogated by Chinese police after arriving in Hong Kong.
Amnesty demanded authorities in Hong Kong reveal Abudureheman’s whereabouts, citing fears he had been extradited to mainland China “ without due process and is at risk of arbitrary detention and torture.”
The organization Tuesday issued a correction of its original statement saying Abudureheman contacted them and told them he did not travel to Hong Kong and that it was pleased he was accounted for.
Hong Kong authorities issued a statement Saturday calling Amnesty’s allegations “groundless and unfounded” and that it “slandered the human rights situation” in the Chinese city.
China has been accused by international human rights groups and Western nations of detaining millions of ethnic Uyghur Muslims and other minorities in the remote northwest region of Xinjiang, subjecting them to torture, forced sterilization and forced labor. The United States has formally labeled the Chinese government’s actions in Xinjiang as “genocide.”
Amnesty said in its correction that it will “continue to monitor and document the grave human rights situation for Uyghurs in mainland China and overseas, as well as the human rights situation in Hong Kong, which has deteriorated rapidly since the introduction of the National Security Law in 2020.”
