An ethnic Uyghur man in Istanbul takes part in a protest against China in July, 2023.MURAD SEZER/Reuters

Yalkun Uluyol is a China researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Since late 2016, Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in northwestern China have been victims of crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Chinese government. As an international student living in Istanbul at that time, I decided not to return home and instead started publicly advocating on behalf of hundreds of thousands of arbitrarily detained Uyghurs in China. They include my father, Memet Yaqup, who disappeared in 2018 and is now serving a 16-year prison sentence, having committed no crime.

Until recently, the Turkish government had provided protection with preferential treatment for Uyghurs like me due to our Turkic origin. This made many of us eligible for long-term residence permits and subsequently Turkish citizenship. However, over the last couple of years, as Turkey has adopted increasingly anti-immigrant policies and China-Turkey relations warm, various administrative malpractices have not only nullified that preferential treatment – they have put members of my community at risk of forcible return to China.

Based on my recent research, Turkish authorities have arbitrarily assigned “

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