World Uyghur Congress Grapples With Chinese Threats At Sarajevo Conference

SARAJEVO -- As the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) gathers in Bosnia-Herzegovina for its triennial meeting, the organization's leaders say they are facing fresh pressure and harassment aimed at derailing the conference.

"Ever since we announced that our general assembly would take place in Sarajevo in June, we have faced many threats, including slander campaigns against our members and candidates running for high-level positions," Zumretay Arkin, the director of global advocacy at the WUC, told RFE/RL in an interview.

Ahead of the October 24-27 general assembly of the WUC -- an international organization of the ethnic group's diaspora from more than 25 countries in Central Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and North America -- Arkin says the organization has dealt with hacking attacks, physical threats against members and their families, and even attempts to prevent the Sarajevo assembly from taking place.

Arkin says the e-mail account of a WUC staff member was hacked on October 21 and the unidentified hackers sent a notification to all registered attendees -- including foreign lawmakers and delegates vying to be elected to the organization's leadership -- falsely claiming that the event was postponed. The WUC released copies of the forged e-mails on its social media accounts to notify attendees that the information was incorrect.

"They even used our former president's signature to forge the document," Arkin said. "We have also received mass spam e-mails from bots or Chinese accounts.

The Germany-based WUC consists mainly of Uyghurs living in exile and advocates for the rights of those who remain in China.

Intimidation And Harassment

The group and other organizations that advocate for Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in China, such as ethnic Kazakhs and Kyrgyz, have long grappled with intimidation and harassment as they've looked to raise awareness about human rights abuses in China's northwestern Xinjiang Province.

Beijing stands accused by some rights groups and Western parliaments of committing genocide in the region, while the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said that a 2022 investigation found evidence of "serious human rights violations" in Xinjiang.

Zumretay Arkin, World Uyghur Congress spokeswoman and director of global advocacy, in Sarajevo ahead of the 2024 meeting

Chinese authorities have also been accused of imposing forced labor, mass internment, forced birth control, erasing Uyghur cultural and religious identity, and separating children from incarcerated parents.

Beijing has firmly denied the findings.

Arkin says the Chinese Embassy in Sarajevo has also exerted pressure on the event, claiming that embassy officials told organizers "to cancel the event and even [threatened] to stage a car accident." She added that they also said they would encourage Bosnian law enforcement to arrest some WUC members, including former President Dolkun Isa, a German citizen.

The Chinese Embassy in Sarajevo did not respond to RFE/RL's request for comment.

Bosnia has an extradition treaty with China, which Arkin says was a concern for some WUC members, but that no one has faced any pressure from local authorities since arriving in Sarajevo.

Attempts by Chinese officials to disrupt WUC gatherings are not unprecedented.

Ahead of the organization's last general assembly in Prague in 2021, the Marriott hotel in the Czech capital declined to host the conference, citing "political neutrality," according to e-mails obtained by the U.S. news outlet Axios.

Looking ahead at the WUC gathering in Sarajevo, Arkin says the organization chose the Bosnian capital to draw upon the country's own experiences with human rights abuses and genocide from the wars following the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

"Bosnia [has] witnessed genocide. While I wouldn't say the histories are directly similar, there are parallels in the history of atrocities, crimes, documentation efforts, transitional justice, international justice, and accountability measures," she added.

"We can use this as a model for understanding the Uyghur genocide."