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It also tried to have a documentary about her life withdrawn from a film festival in the Australian city of Melbourne.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.
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