South Korea has stopped a leading Uighur rights activist from entering the country to attend a democracy forum coorganized by the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy and is detaining him at Incheon International Airport, organizers said yesterday.
Dolkun Isa, secretary-general of the Munich, Germany-based World Uyghur Congress, has been held at Incheon airport since Tuesday night, the World Forum for Democratization in Asia said.
Bo Tedards of the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, an organizer of the three-day event that began in Seoul on Wednesday, said he suspected Chinese pressure prompted the ban on Isa.
“I don’t know the details legally but the reason why they don’t allow him in is because there is pressure from China,” Tedards told AFP.
South Korean immigration authorities were holding Isa despite his wish to return home to Germany, Tedards said.
“We are angry about it. Right now we are concerned about him because we don’t understand why they want to keep him here,” Tedards said. “We can’t think of any good reasons. We can only think of bad reasons.”
Beijing claims Isa is a terrorist and has repeatedly sought his extradition from other countries. Interpol issued a Red Notice some years ago informing member countries that China seeks his extradition. Germany, which granted Isa political asylum in 1997 and citizenship in 2006, has investigated China’s allegations and declined to act on them.
A South Korean immigration officer said Isa’s name was on a blacklist, and that he would be deported to Dubai. China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman denied any knowledge of the case.
China reacted angrily when Japan in July allowed World Uyghur Congress president Rebiya Kadeer to visit Tokyo for a private forum.
It also tried to have a documentary about her life withdrawn from a film festival in the Australian city of Melbourne.
Meanwhile, four Uighur men were sentenced to between eight and 15 years in prison for stabbing a Han Chinese woman in the neck with a syringe in the capital of the ethnically divided Xinjiang region in China’s northwest.
Authorities initially blamed the needle attacks on terrorists, however, the four confirmed cases appear to be petty crimes.
A Uighur man and woman were jailed for 10 years and seven years for using a syringe to rob a taxi driver of 710 yuan (US$103) and a 19-year-old Uighur got 15 years after he jabbed a woman in the buttock with a pin. A drug addict who fought off arresting officers with a heroin-filled syringe awaits trial.
Crowds in Bangladesh are flocking to snap photographs with an unlikely social media star — an albino buffalo with flowing blond hair nicknamed “Donald Trump” that is due to be sacrificed within days. Owner Zia Uddin Mridha, 38, said his brother named the 700kg bull over its flowing helmet of hair resembling the signature look of the US president. “My younger brother picked this name because of the buffalo’s extraordinary hair,” he said at his farm in Narayanganj, just outside the capital, Dhaka. Mridha said that a constant stream of curious visitors — social media fans, onlookers and children — have come throughout
It began as a satirical online project. Now millions of young people in India are flocking to it as an outlet for their frustration. A parody political party called the Cockroach Janta Party, with the insect as its symbol, has exploded across India’s social media by turning absurdist humor into protest. Memes and short videos mocking corruption, joblessness and political dysfunction have flooded social media sites, where millions of users are embracing the cockroach — known for its ability to survive harsh conditions — as a tongue-in-cheek symbol of endurance. The online movement’s rise has been unusually rapid. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)
BIGGER ROLE: Beijing has said it maintains an impartial stance on the war in Ukraine, but by training Russian troops, China is far more involved than previously known China’s armed forces secretly trained about 200 Russian military personnel in China late last year, and some have since returned to fight in Ukraine, according to three European intelligence agencies and documents seen by Reuters. While China and Russia have held a number of joint military exercises since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Beijing has repeatedly said that it is neutral in the conflict and presents itself as a peace mediator. The covert training sessions, which predominantly focused on the use of drones, were outlined in a dual-language Russian-Chinese agreement signed by senior Russian and Chinese officers in Beijing on
HOTTER: While Indians are accustomed to summer heat, climate change has caused northwestern India to warm faster than other parts of the country, an academic said Roads and markets have emptied during afternoons and some farmers have switched to nighttime work to avoid scorching temperatures as a heat wave grips large parts of India. The India Meteorological Department forecast maximum temperatures for yesterday of about 45°C in the capital, New Delhi, where authorities have opened temporary “cooling zones” to help people cope. The weather department warned that conditions would likely persist across several northern regions in the coming days, with temperatures staying well above seasonal averages. Authorities urged people to stay indoors during the hottest hours and take precautions against heat-related illnesses. India declares a heat wave whenever maximum temperatures
RSS