“We Are Afraid to Even Look for Them”: Enforced Disappearances in the Wake of Xinjiang’s Protests
on October 1, 2009
In the aftermath of the July 2009 protests in Xinjiang province, which according to the Chinese government killed at least 197 people, Chinese security forces detained hundreds of people on suspicion of participating in the unrest. Dozens of these detainees, and likely many more, have since "disappeared" without a trace. The Xinjiang protests marked one of the worst episodes of ethnic violence in China in decades, and were largely a response to the government's longstanding discriminatory policies toward the Uighur minority of that region. This report documents for the first time the enforced disappearances of at least 43 Uighur men and teenage boys who were detained by Chinese security forces in the wake of the protests. Human Rights Watch called on the Chinese government to immediately stop the practice of enforced disappearances, release those against whom no charges have been brought, and account for every person held in detention.