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It also tried to have a documentary about her life withdrawn from a film festival in the Australian city of Melbourne.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.
A ship that appears to be taking on the identity of a scrapped gas carrier exited the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, showing how strategies to get through the waterway are evolving as the Middle East war progresses. The vessel identifying as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Jamal left the Strait on Friday morning, ship-tracking data show. However, the same tanker was also recorded as having beached at an Indian demolition yard in October last year, where it is being broken up, according to market participants and port agent’s reports. The ship claiming to be Jamal is likely a zombie vessel that
Japan is to downgrade its description of ties with China from “one of its most important” in an annual diplomatic report, according to a draft reviewed by Reuters, as relations with Beijing worsen. This year’s Diplomatic Bluebook, which Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government is expected to approve next month, would instead describe China as an important neighbor and the relationship as “strategic” and “mutually beneficial.” The draft cites a series of confrontations with Beijing over the past year, including export controls on rare earths, radar lock-ons targeting Japanese military aircraft and increased pressure around Taiwan. The shift in tone underscores a deterioration
LAW CONSTRAINTS: The US has been pressing allies to send warships to open the Strait, but Tokyo’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution Japan could consider deploying its military for minesweeping in the Strait of Hormuz if a ceasefire is reached in the war on Iran, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi said yesterday. “If there were to be a complete ceasefire, hypothetically speaking, then things like minesweeping could come up,” Motegi said. “This is purely hypothetical, but if a ceasefire were established and naval mines were creating an obstacle, then I think that would be something to consider.” Japan’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution, but 2015 security legislation allows Tokyo to use its Self-Defense Forces overseas if an attack,
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) yesterday faced a regional election battle in Rhineland-Palatinate, now held by the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Merz’s CDU has enjoyed a narrow poll lead over the SPD — their coalition partners at the national level — who have ruled the mid-sized state for 35 years. Polling third is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which spells a greater threat to the two centrist parties in several state elections in September in the country’s ex-communist east. The picturesque state of Rhineland-Palatinate, bordering France, Belgium and Luxembourg and with a population of about 4 million,
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