Ahmet, a United Arab Emirates resident, was detained in February 2018 in Dubai after visiting a police station in Deira, Dubai, on a police officer’s request. After a few days of detention and his passport being confiscated, Ahmet was deported to Xinjiang. It is believed that his family was only notified after the fact, and that Ahmet is now detained in a prison in Korla. The family does not appear to have been given the reasons for Ahmet’s arrest and deportation, nor do they know the length of his sentence.
The person interviewed by Amnesty International, who now lives in Turkey, lost all connections with his closest family members still in China but tried to find information about Ahmet through other relatives. They were the ones who first confirmed that Ahmet was held in a prison in Korla and that there had been no trial or investigation conducted against Ahmet.
The official reasons for Ahment’s detention are not known, but the person Amnesty International interviewed believes that Ahmet was arrested solely because of his ethnicity.