By Daria Sito-Sucic
SARAJEVO (Reuters) – A body fighting for Uyghur people’s rights in China and abroad had to meet in virtual secrecy with police protection in the Bosnian capital after threats and pressure to cancel, it said.
The Germany-based World Uyghur Congress (WUC) held a four-day conference until Sunday with several hundred delegates from 25 nations in a Sarajevo hotel – but few outside would have known.
There were no signs or placards, reception staff hesitated to give information, and plainclothes policemen were in the lobby while special units parked outside.
Organisers and participants told Reuters that social media and email messages were received in advance pressuring them to cancel the event and threatening to disrupt it.
“We have seen Chinese individuals here at the hotel taking photos of our delegates during the event which was a way to intimidate them,” said Zumrety Arkin, who was elected as a WUC vice-president at the meeting.
She and other attendees largely stayed inside the hotel for safety reasons, Arkin said.
The Chinese Embassy in Sarajevo did not respond to requests for comment about the accusations over the conference.
The event proceeded normally without incident.
Rights groups accuse China of repression, including forced labour, mass surveillance and placing 1 million or more of the mainly Muslim ethnic group in a network of internment camps in the northwestern province of Xinjiang.
China denies abuses and says it created “vocational training centres” to curb terrorism, separatism and religious radicalism.
Arkin and WUC chief coordinator Erkin Zunun said harassment began when the assembly was announced in June, with delegates receiving threatening messages, some referring to killing them or their relatives, and a false cancellation email.
Some emails were also hacked, they said.
The WUC said it hired private security for the event.
“Some of our delegates were afraid to leave the hotel. For some of our candidates, there was security stationed 24/7 in front of their rooms,” Arkin said.
Bosnian authorities have not commented on the conference.
(Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)