Escapee Says China Operates Black Site Prison in Dubai

by ian

Ian Patrick, FISM News

 

China was exposed last year of detaining and mutilating ethnic Uyghur peoples within the Xinjiang region of their nation, to the horror of the international community. Many nations and organizations responded with company blacklists and condemnations of the human rights violations, but the Chinese practice of ethnic concentration camps remain to this day.

However, it seems detainments from the Chinese government are not just limited to one region in China. This is according to 26 year-old Wu Huan, a woman who says she was held for eight days in a black site located within Dubai.

Speaking with the Associated Press, Wu said that she was abducted at her hotel earlier this year in Dubai and taken to a “villa converted to a jail.” Neither she nor her fiancé, Wang Jingyu, are Uyghurs themselves but they were trying to avoid being sent back to China because Wang Jingyu “was considered a Chinese dissident.” Wang is wanted for posting messages on social media questioning China on the Hong Kong 2019 protest coverage and the border dispute with India.

Wang was first arrested on April 5 for what the AP describes as “unclear charges.” This arrest prompted Wu to give interviews on the matter and to reach out to Chinese dissidents elsewhere for assistance. Wu said she was also apprehended by Chinese officials at her hotel on May 27 and taken into custody where she was interrogated by Li Xuhang, the consul general of the Chinese consulate in Dubai.

Li asked her if she took money from foreign actors to act against China, which she denied. She was then transported to the villa-like prison where she was imprisoned and further interrogated. She was also supposedly given a phone and instructed to call and text her fiancé as well as a pastor that the couple knew.

While in this prison, she witnessed seeing and hearing two other women that she said were Uyghurs.

Eventually, after refusing meals and demanding to be released, she was told by her captors that they would let her go if she would “sign documents in Arabic and English testifying that Wang was harassing her.” Although she says she didn’t want to, she signed the documents and was released.

She was returned to the hotel and given her belongings, which were taken upon her abduction. She then flew to Ukraine on June 11 where she reunited with Wang.

Although Wu’s story cannot be confirmed, the AP notes that there is “corroborating evidence including stamps in her passport, a phone recording of a Chinese official asking her questions and text messages that she sent from jail” to her pastor.”

China’s foreign ministry has outright denied Wu’s story, and the Dubai police said that her story of being detained by their force on behalf of a foreign nation is incorrect.

The existence of black sites existing within the UAE are not new. In fact, the daughter of the ruler of Dubai claims she was abducted and held in a black site. Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum says she tried to escape from the nation in 2018 by sea but was caught by the Indian coast guard and returned to the UAE. The BBC put out videos from February of this year in which she said she was being held in such a villa, but later a statement was issued on behalf of Sheikha Latifa which says she is free to travel.

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