Help Uighur Gheni get political asylum
Donation protected
My name is Gheni Samad. I am an Uighur, from Xinjiang, China – and your help could save my life.
Back at home, life looked good for me after I graduated in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Xinjiang University. I had exceptional grades, and a bright future lay ahead of me.
But then came the racial discrimination, barring me from access to the job market I had worked so hard to enter.
However, despite my home country turning its back on me and denying me the chance to pursue my dreams, I was determined not to give up. I wanted above anything else to continue my studies in biomedical sciences, which I hoped would one day mean I could be a researcher specialising in treating chronic illnesses.
In 2015, I went to Italy to continue my education. But I did not fully realise the fundamental changes that were taking place in my home region: mass surveillance, imprisonments, and the beginning of the detentions in concentration camps of my people, the Uighur community.
In August 2017, I lost all contact with my family and friends in Xinjiang. Since then and still up until this very minute, I have no idea don’t know if any of them are alive, dead, or thrown into concentration camps alongside one million other Uighurs for no reason other than their religion.
Immediately after that, the Chinese police began to repeatedly call me on my mobile phone. They threatened me, telling me over and over to come back to China.
In the following two years of my education, I suffered enormous difficulties, both financially and mentally. But I never gave it up on my studies, and finished my Master’s degree in 2019, specialising in stem cell technology and cancer diagnostics.
After I graduated, the threats mounted: the Chinese police insisted they could bring me back at any time by imposing false charges, stressing the fact that China and Italy have an extradition agreement.
Terrified, I flew to the Netherlands in February this year in order to try and seek political asylum. However, even though I provided substantial evidence showing that if I continue to stay in Italy my life will be endangered, my asylum application was rejected. Now I face forced deportation.
I am currently filing my case to the Netherlands’ High Court, with an independent lawyer, who is asking for €1600. I have managed to save up €300, but the rest is due in under a month, and I have no means to pay it all.
So, I sincerely ask for your help. Any tiny contribution may help save my life. Please do not let me be deported, or I may face the same fate as so many of my fellow Uighurs: locked up, starved, indoctrinated – or murdered – by the Chinese state.
Thank you so much for reading.
Further information:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/24/china-has-built-380-internment-camps-in-xinjiang-study-finds
https://www.vox.com/2020/7/28/21333345/uighurs-china-internment-camps-forced-labor-xinjiang
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/uighur-muslim-china-sterilisation-women-internment-camps-xinjiang-a9054641.html
Back at home, life looked good for me after I graduated in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Xinjiang University. I had exceptional grades, and a bright future lay ahead of me.
But then came the racial discrimination, barring me from access to the job market I had worked so hard to enter.
However, despite my home country turning its back on me and denying me the chance to pursue my dreams, I was determined not to give up. I wanted above anything else to continue my studies in biomedical sciences, which I hoped would one day mean I could be a researcher specialising in treating chronic illnesses.
In 2015, I went to Italy to continue my education. But I did not fully realise the fundamental changes that were taking place in my home region: mass surveillance, imprisonments, and the beginning of the detentions in concentration camps of my people, the Uighur community.
In August 2017, I lost all contact with my family and friends in Xinjiang. Since then and still up until this very minute, I have no idea don’t know if any of them are alive, dead, or thrown into concentration camps alongside one million other Uighurs for no reason other than their religion.
Immediately after that, the Chinese police began to repeatedly call me on my mobile phone. They threatened me, telling me over and over to come back to China.
In the following two years of my education, I suffered enormous difficulties, both financially and mentally. But I never gave it up on my studies, and finished my Master’s degree in 2019, specialising in stem cell technology and cancer diagnostics.
After I graduated, the threats mounted: the Chinese police insisted they could bring me back at any time by imposing false charges, stressing the fact that China and Italy have an extradition agreement.
Terrified, I flew to the Netherlands in February this year in order to try and seek political asylum. However, even though I provided substantial evidence showing that if I continue to stay in Italy my life will be endangered, my asylum application was rejected. Now I face forced deportation.
I am currently filing my case to the Netherlands’ High Court, with an independent lawyer, who is asking for €1600. I have managed to save up €300, but the rest is due in under a month, and I have no means to pay it all.
So, I sincerely ask for your help. Any tiny contribution may help save my life. Please do not let me be deported, or I may face the same fate as so many of my fellow Uighurs: locked up, starved, indoctrinated – or murdered – by the Chinese state.
Thank you so much for reading.
Further information:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/24/china-has-built-380-internment-camps-in-xinjiang-study-finds
https://www.vox.com/2020/7/28/21333345/uighurs-china-internment-camps-forced-labor-xinjiang
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/uighur-muslim-china-sterilisation-women-internment-camps-xinjiang-a9054641.html
Organizer and beneficiary
Gheni Samad
Organizer
Halida Ghupur
Beneficiary
