Exile Does Not Mean Safety: Ccp’s Transnational Repression of Uyghurs

August 29, 2026

Note: The writer prefers to use lower case “c” and “p” to challenge the authority of the Chinese communist party. 

HRRC strongly condemns the Chinese government’s ongoing intimidation of exiled populations, specifically its practice of leveraging family separation to impose broader surveillance and transnational control. 

A mosque in East Turkistan displays a state-imposed banner reading “Love the Party, Love the Homeland,” illustrating the political messaging forced onto places of worship and the systematic intrusion of CCP ideology into religious spaces. [Image Credit: Center for Uyghur Studies/RFA]

On August 16, Human Rights Watch released a news brief revealing Ccp’s transnational repression of Australian Uyghurs, after interviewing 11 Australian Uyghur citizens and permanent residents across the country in April and May 2026. 

Since the Ccp launched the Strike Hard Campaign to suppress the Xinjiang’s insurgency in 2016, more than one million Uyghurs have been detained in so-called re-education camps, and more have been exiled overseas. 

The report also revealed that, when Uyghurs living overseas were granted permission to visit their relatives in Xinjiang under the visa-free program that began 2024, their visits provided a gateway for authorities to interrogate the visitors and monitor the families that have come into contact with the visitors.  

The 2024 visa-free program was a rare and significant opportunity for exiled individuals to finally reunite with their families because Ccp authorities would arrest people for contacting relatives or individuals abroad, especially for those who have been religious figures or activists who are critical of the Ccp. 

Despite offering a visa-free program for overseas Uyghurs, tough restrictions apply. For example, families in Xinjiang must undergo background checks and receive approval from local authorities before their family reunions. One of the interviewees said that they must check into government-designated hotels rather than stay with their families. Moreover, their daily activities in Xinjiang were subject to heavy surveillance and they were followed by authorities. 

One Australian Uyghur was interrogated by authorities more than a dozen times, with one interrogation lasting more than seven hours. The authorities demanded that he provide personal information, such as the addresses and phone numbers of several prominent Uyghur activists in Australia. Authorities also asked questions about Uyghur language schools in Australia and demanded that he photograph Uyghur activists upon his return. He declined to do so. 

Uyghurs protesting in Australia [Image credit: Matt Hrcak/Flickr]

Uyghur communities in Australia expressed concerns, and some revealed that they do not feel safe, even in exile, as they fear their peaceful efforts to preserve Uyghur culture and language could result in their families in Xinjiang being oppressed and monitored.

The World Uyghur Congress, an exiled Uyghur-rights advocacy organization, condemned Ccp’s interrogations and intermediations of Australian Uyghurs. It strongly urged the Australian government to protect the fundamental rights of the Uyghur communities and enable sustainable measures to counter the Ccp’s transnational repression.  

Human Rights Watch described the abuses from the Ccp as transnational repression, which serves as a tool to silence Uyghurs across borders. The interrogations of visiting Uyghurs will likely create anxiety among exiled communities, as fear of being monitored at public events increases. 

Human Rights Foundation concluded in one of its newly released reports, Toolkit to Counter the Chinese Communist Party’s Transnational Repression, that the aim of transnational repression is to impose fear and to infringe fragmentations among exiled communities and human rights dissidents in the long-term. 

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Glossary

• Coercing: forcing someone to do something by using threats or pressure. 

• Designated: chosen or named for a particular purpose or position. 

• Exiled: forced to leave your country, usually for political reasons. 

• Insurgency: an organized attempt by a group of people to take control of their country by force. 

• Interrogate: to ask someone a lot of questions for a long time in order to get information, sometimes using threats or violence

• Repression: the use of force or other methods to control people and prevent them from expressing their opinions or taking action. 

• Surveillance: the careful watching of a person or place, especially by the police or army, because of a crime or political activity. 

• Transnational: involving or operating in more than one country.