A recent report by the Associated Press (AP) recounts the testimony of a Chinese woman who claimed that she was detained for eight days at a secret Chinese-run detention facility in Dubai, along with two Uighurs.
Wu Huan has been trying to avoid extradition to China because her fiancé is listed as a dissident. Wu and her fiancé, Wang Jingyu, are not Uighur but Han Chinese, the majority ethnicity in China. However, Wang is wanted by Beijing for posting messages questioning the Chinese media’s coverage of the Hong Kong protests in 2019 and China’s actions in a border clash with India.
Wu told the AP that she was abducted from a hotel in Dubai and was taken to a villa converted into a jail run by Chinese officials. Although she could not pinpoint the black site’s exact location, Wu claims to have seen or heard two other female prisoners. She recognised them both to be Uighurs based on their distinctive appearance and accent. Wu stated that she was questioned and threatened in Chinese and coerced into signing legal documents incriminating her fiancé for harassment. Wu was released on June 8 and is currently seeking asylum in the Netherlands.
The AP could not independently confirm or refute Wu’s story. However, reporters have seen and heard corroborating evidence, including stamps in her passport, officials in Dubai’s Chinese Embassy named by Wu, a phone recording of a Chinese official questioning her, and text messages she sent from the site to a pastor helping the couple.
Experts say this is the first evidence suggesting that China operates a so-called “black site” beyond its borders. “Black sites” refer to secret jails where prisoners are generally not charged with a crime and have no access to a legal route, with no bail or court order. The report claims that it is common in China to address petitioners with grievances against local governments in hotel rooms or guesthouses. The possible existence of such a site showcases China’s utilisation of its growing international influence and soft power to detain or bring back citizens from overseas, including dissidents, corruption suspects, and ethnic minorities like the Uighurs.
Dismissing the AP report and Wu’s testimony on Monday, Hua Chunying, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said, “What I can tell you is that the situation the person talked about is not true.”
The Dubai Police also refuted the claims and said that Wu freely exited the country with her friend three months ago. “Dubai does not detain any foreign nationals without following internationally accepted procedures and local law enforcement processes, nor does it allow foreign governments to run any detention centres within its borders...Dubai also follows all recognised global norms and procedures set by international organisations like Interpol in the detainment, interrogation and transfer of fugitives sought by foreign governments,” a statement by the Dubai government’s media department read.
Although it has brushed off the account, Dubai is known to have a history of providing a haven to Beijing for interrogating Uighurs and deporting them to China. Activists say that Dubai has previously been linked to secret interrogations involving foreign countries. Radha Stirling, a legal advocate and founder of the advocacy group Detained in Dubai, says she has worked with several people who have narrated accounts of being held in villas in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), including citizens of Canada, India, and Jordan, but not China.