Chinese citizen of Kazakh origin asks Uzbekistan not to extradite him

Human rights activists are urging Uzbekistan to deny a Chinese extradition request for an ethnic Kazakh citizen of China who is reportedly stuck in Tashkent International Airport. 

Businessman Halemubieke Xiaheman, 41, from China’s Xinjiang province, said in a video apparently recorded inside Tashkent airport building that he had been harassed by Chinese security officials to a point where his Russian and Kazakh clients were scared to work with him.

The video, as well as photos of Xiaheman’s documents, was distributed late on Thursday by a group of activists based in Kazakhstan who said they were seeking to prevent Xiaheman’s extradition to China.

Beijing has faced an outcry from activists, scholars, foreign governments and U.N. rights experts over what they say are mass detentions and strict surveillance of the large, mostly Muslim Uighur population and other Muslim groups, including ethnic Kazakhs, who live in the Xinjiang region in northwest China.

Steve Swerdlow, Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, said returning Xiaheman to China would be “tantamount to shoving him down a dark hole”.

“Uzbekistan has a legal obligation under international law not to send a person to any country where he or she could face torture or the death penalty, even if that person is technically in a ‘transit zone’ of the airport,” Swerdlow said.

It should be noted that the Uzbek Foreign Ministry earlier stated Halemubieke Xiaheman did not enter the territory of Uzbekistan and flew to Bangkok on February 9, 2019.