Dharamshala, 18th August: A young Chinese lady claims she was imprisoned for eight days at a Chinese-run secret detention facility in Dubai, along with at least two Uyghurs, in what could be the first evidence that China operates a “black site” outside its borders. Wu Huan, a 26-year-old Chinese lady, was on the run to avoid being extradited to China because her fiance was a Chinese dissident. Wu claimed that she was kidnapped from a Dubai hotel and kept by Chinese officials in a converted house that she saw or heard two other captives, both Uyghurs. She claims she was interrogated and threatened in Chinese, and she was forced to sign court documents accusing her boyfriend of harassing her. On June 8, she was ultimately released and is now seeking refuge in the Netherlands.
While “black sites” are frequent in China, experts believe Wu’s claim is the only proof that Beijing has established one in another country. Such a website would demonstrate how China is increasingly utilizing its international clout to imprison or return persons it wants from other countries, whether they are dissidents, corruption suspects, or ethnic minorities like the Uyghurs.
An assistant professor at Taiwan’s Academia Sinica, Yu-Jie Chen, said she had never heard of a Chinese secret jail in Dubai and that such a facility in another nation would be unprecedented. She did, however, point out that it would be consistent with China’s efforts to return select nationals, both through official methods such as signing extradition treaties and unofficial means such as withdrawing visas or putting pressure on family members back home. Chen claimed that Uyghurs in particular were being extradited or sent to China, which has been holding the predominantly Muslim minority on terrorist suspicions for seemingly innocuous acts like praying.
Uyghurs have been interrogated and deported from Dubai in the past, and campaigners claim that Dubai has been linked to secret interrogations. Radha Stirling, a lawyer who created the Detained in Dubai advocacy group, said she had dealt with approximately a dozen people who have reported being held in villas in the UAE, including Canadians, Indians, and Jordanians but not Chinese.
Wu claims she was questioned by Chinese authorities at her hotel on May 27 and then brought to a police station for three days by Dubai police. She claimed that on the third day, a Chinese man named Li Xuhang paid her a visit. He introduced himself as a Chinese consul in Dubai and inquired if she had gotten money from international parties to act against China. On the website of the Chinese embassy in Dubai, Li Xuhang is named as consul general. Wu claimed that she was handcuffed and thrown into a black Toyota. She was taken inside a white three-story villa after half an hour, where rooms had been turned into individual cells, she said.
Wu was led to her own cell, which included a strong metal door, a bed, a chair, and a bright white fluorescent light that was turned on at all times of the day and night. She claimed she was repeatedly interrogated and threatened in Chinese.
She stated she once spotted another prisoner, a Uyghur woman while waiting to use the bathroom. “I don’t want to go back to China, I want to go back to Turkey,” a Uyghur woman shouted in Chinese a second time. Wu identified the women as Uyghurs based on their appearance and accent, she added. The final thing Wu’s kidnappers wanted her to do, she claimed, was sign documents claiming Wang was harassing her.
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