Organisation says it has spoken with Abuduwaili Abudureheman and understands he never travelled to Hong Kong, as was earlier claimed
City government slams rights group over failing to apologise for claiming he went missing
Human rights group Amnesty International has admitted that a Uygur student it reported “missing in Hong Kong” was accounted for in South Korea, prompting the city government to demand an apology from the organisation.
Hours before Amnesty’s about-face, a professor in Seoul who taught Abuduwaili Abudureheman alerted the media to the fact that the student had not even travelled to Hong Kong and was safe in the capital.
The organisation said it spoke with Abuduwaili on Tuesday and understood he had not travelled to Hong Kong earlier this month, contrary to previous information it received.
“We are pleased that Abuduwaili Abudureheman is accounted for,” an Amnesty International spokesman said. “We will continue to strive to offer support to people who reach out to us when they believe they or their loved ones are at risk of human rights violations.”
“We will also continue to monitor and document the grave human rights situation for Uygurs in mainland China and overseas, as well as the human rights situation in Hong Kong, which has deteriorated rapidly since the introduction of the national security law in 2020.”
Amnesty on Friday said Abuduwaili had travelled to Hong Kong from South Korea to visit a friend on May 10, but had not been heard from since he texted a friend about “being interrogated by Chinese police” after landing at the airport.
The next day Hong Kong authorities slammed the rights group over the “groundless” claim and insisted he had “not entered or been refused entry”.
In a statement issued late on Tuesday, the Hong Kong government slammed Amnesty for failing to apologise for its “shameful” and “false” accusations against local authorities.
“The organisation has not only refused to admit it was wrong, but says it will continue to monitor the human rights situations in Hong Kong and the mainland, in a bid to cover up its wrongdoings and shift attention to the fabricated smearing malicious attacks against Hong Kong and the mainland,” the statement said.
“The government despises such acts and hopes the organisation can offer a solemn apology in a responsible manner.”
In its reply to the Post on Tuesday, the organisation did not say whether it had verified the source of the information claiming Abuduwaili had gone missing before issuing its statement. Neither did Amnesty say if it would apologise to the Hong Kong government.
The group’s clarification came hours after Professor Jo Woog-yeon, of Kookmin University in Seoul, told the Post that he called the 38-year-old student on Sunday when he learned about Amnesty’s report from the news.
“When I told him about the news, Mr Abuduwaili himself expressed shock and dismay as he has been in South Korea throughout this year and he never set foot in Hong Kong,” he said.
“In order for me to confirm he is certainly in Seoul, we engaged in a mobile video call during which he turned the mobile camera around to show street name signs to prove that he was in Seoul indeed.”
The professor said he guaranteed Abuduwaili was “alive and well” in Seoul, adding the student did not want to talk to journalists.
In its initial statement, Amnesty claimed Abuduwaili was on a Chinese government “watch list” of Uygurs and other Muslims from the Xinjiang region, because of his history of overseas travel.
The Chinese government has been accused by Western politicians and groups such as Amnesty of human rights abuses in the far western region of Xinjiang, claims it has repeatedly rejected as “slanderous”.
