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“THEY TOLD ME THAT THEY ARE GOING TO HAND ME OVER TO THE POLICE. I’M WORRIED.”

SCROLL TO CONTINUE


“IF THEY DEPORT ME TO CHINA, THINGS WILL GO VERY BAD.”

“GOD WILLING, I HOPE EVERYTHING WILL GO WELL.”


HE THOUGHT HE HAD ESCAPED BEIJING’S CLUTCHES ONLY TO VANISH BACK INTO CHINA

By Shibani Mahtani
December 12, 2024 at 5:00 a.m. EST
22 min
110
Sorry, a summary is not available for this article at this time. Please try
again later.

THMA DA, Cambodia — The arrival of Cambodian police officers should have come as
a relief for Abdureqip Rahman. The young Uyghur man had been trapped inside a
high-walled, barbed-wire compound for 10 weeks, working alongside others
trafficked here and forced, often through beatings, to run online scams.

But Rahman had become increasingly nervous at the prospect of rescue, wary of
the Cambodian authorities. He had heard that the officers were there to take him
to the capital, Phnom Penh, and then to immigration authorities who would send
him home — to China, where the consequences would be “unimaginable,” he said.

Rahman tried to stay calm. He reminded himself of assurances from U.N. officials
that he would be protected. He was hoping ultimately to secure asylum in the
United States.


REPRESSION’S LONG ARM

China increasingly subverts the norms associated with global asylum laws,
especially when it comes to targeting its own religious minority group, Uyghur
Muslims. The Washington Post is investigating a global surge in campaigns of
cross-border repression. The United States and other Western governments have
struggled to stem this phenomenon. As a result, sanctuary for those fleeing
persecution is shrinking on nearly every continent.

PreviousNext

“Everything is okay,” a U.N. official had told him in a series of Signal
messages he secretly exchanged while he was still in the scam compound. “The
U.N. and other partners are involved and requesting international protection for
your case.”

Rahman, 23, had told officials and activists that he had worked in the massive
and brutal penal system that China built in the region of Xinjiang to suppress
the Uyghur Muslim population there, and then was detained after he left his job.
After he fled China, his WeChat accounts and bank accounts were frozen, he said.
Authorities in Xinjiang told his family they were looking for him.

A Washington Post investigation found that after his removal from the compound
here on Jan. 13, Rahman was held by the Cambodian authorities and then returned
to China. He has not been heard from since Jan. 30.

Illustrations by James Lee Chiahan for The Washington Post

Rahman’s secret repatriation is a starkly chilling example of how China
increasingly exerts its will extrajudicially outside its borders, not only over
Southeast Asian countries such as Cambodia, but also international bodies —
including the United Nations, whose systems were designed to protect the world’s
most vulnerable. Under international law, no one should be returned to a country
where they would face torture or other inhumane treatment. The United States
says there is an ongoing genocide against the Uyghur Muslim population, and in
2022, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said China may
be responsible for crimes against humanity against the minority group.

China has for years demanded the return of Uyghurs who fled to other countries,
including Thailand, Egypt and Pakistan. Hundreds of Uyghurs have been
extrajudicially deported since the acceleration of the crackdown against the
Muslim minority in 2017, particularly from Central and Southeast Asia, North
Africa and the Middle East — according to Uyghur activists and human rights
reports — or are being detained indefinitely in those regions.

Route map of Abdureqip Rahman

Escape from Xinjiang

1

Abdureqip Rahman leaves Kucha

Oct. 2023

Kucha

Xinjiang

CHINA

GuangXI

2

VIETNAM

Leaves Guangxi province by boat and crosses into Vietnam

CAMBODIA

3

Indian

Ocean

Crosses into Cambodia

overland

500 MILES

Bureaucratic shuffle

THAILAND

9

Handed over to Pursat provincial police

Jan. 19

Repatriated to Kucha, China

Brought to the Interior Ministry

in Phnom Penh

Jan. 22

Transferred to Veal Veng district police

Jan. 13

6

Pursat

5

8

Handed to the Chinese Embassy in Phnom Penh

Jan. 31

Veal Veng

7

Thma Da

Phnom

Penh

4

Smuggled into

a cyberscam compound

in Thma Da

Nov. 2023

to Jan. 2024

First rescued

by Thma Da commune police

Jan. 13

 

CAMBODIA

VIETNAM



Indian

Ocean

100 MILES

Escape from Xinjiang

1

Abdureqip Rahman leaves Kucha

Oct. 2023

Kucha

Xinjiang

CHINA

GuangXI

Pacific

Ocean

2

VIETNAM

Leaves Guangxi province by boat and crosses into Vietnam

CAMBODIA

3

Crosses into Cambodia

overland

Indian

Ocean

500 MILES

Bureaucratic shuffle

THAILAND

Handed over to Pursat provincial police

Jan. 19

9

Transferred to Veal Veng district police

Jan. 13

Brought to the Interior Ministry

in Phnom Penh

Jan. 22

Repatriated to Kucha, China

6

Pursat

5

8

Veal Veng

7

Handed to the Chinese Embassy in Phnom Penh

Jan. 31

Thma Da

4

Phnom Penh

Smuggled into

a cyberscam compound

in Thma Da

Nov. 2023

to Jan. 2024

First rescued

by Thma Da commune police

Jan. 13

 

CAMBODIA

VIETNAM



Indian

Ocean

100 MILES

Escape from Xinjiang

1

Abdureqip Rahman leaves Kucha Oct. 2023

Kucha

Xinjiang

CHINA

GuangXI

Pacific

Ocean

2

VIETNAM

Leaves Guangxi province by boat and crosses into Vietnam

CAMBODIA

3

Crosses into Cambodia

overland

Indian

Ocean

500 MILES

Bureaucratic shuffle

THAILAND

Handed over to Pursat provincial police

Jan. 19

9

Repatriated to Kucha, China

CAMBODIA

Transferred to Veal Veng district police

Jan. 13

Brought to the Interior Ministry

in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital

Jan. 22

6

Pursat

Handed to the Chinese Embassy in Phnom Penh

Jan. 31

5

Veal Veng

7

Thma Da

8

4

Phnom Penh

Smuggled into a cyberscam compound

in Thma Da

Nov. 2023

to Jan. 2024

First rescued

by Thma Da commune police

Jan. 13

Ho Chi Minh City

VIETNAM

Indian

Ocean



100 MILES

Escape from Xinjiang

1

Abdureqip Rahman leaves Kucha Oct. 2023

Kucha

Xinjiang

CHINA

GuangXI

Pacific

Ocean

2

VIETNAM

Leaves Guangxi province by boat and crosses into Vietnam

CAMBODIA

3

Crosses into Cambodia

overland

Indian

Ocean

500 MILES

Bureaucratic shuffle

THAILAND

Handed over to Pursat provincial police

Jan. 19

9

Repatriated to Kucha, China

CAMBODIA

Transferred to Veal Veng district police

Jan. 13

Brought to the Interior Ministry

in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital

Jan. 22

6

Pursat

Handed to the Chinese Embassy in Phnom Penh

Jan. 31

5



Veal Veng

7

Thma Da

8

4

Phnom Penh

Smuggled into a cyberscam compound

in Thma Da

Nov. 2023

to Jan. 2024

First rescued

by Thma Da commune police

Jan. 13

Ho Chi Minh City

VIETNAM

Indian

Ocean



100 MILES

These are all places where Beijing has significant economic sway and where it is
often not politically expedient to push back against China’s demands, watchdog
groups say. Such deportations are rarely publicized and often bypass formal
extradition agreements, The Post found.



At times, even the United Nations has appeared impotent or unable to intervene.
Uyghur activists and rescuers helping trafficking victims charge that U.N.
agencies increasingly fail to push back against Beijing and the governments it
compels to do its bidding. The International Organization for Migration (IOM),
which is part of the U.N. system and operates programs for migrants, including
refugees, and the U.N.’s refugee agency, UNHCR, have declined to intervene in
Uyghur asylum cases involving more than two dozen people, including in Thailand,
Sudan, India and in Cambodia, in addition to Rahman’s case, The Post found.

That has left individuals and families seeking asylum languishing in detention
for years or being forcibly returned to China without due process, as Rahman
was.

“The Chinese government has paralyzed the U.N.’s systems,” said Omer Kanat,
executive director of the Uyghur Human Rights Project and co-founder of the
World Uyghur Congress. “The U.N.’s mission is to protect refugees, but they have
been deported back despite all the guarantees given by the UNHCR and other
agencies.”

The IOM declined to make anyone available for an interview on Rahman’s case or
on its processes as they pertain to Uyghurs or victims of trafficking in
Cambodia. In response to an extensive list of questions from The Post, a
spokeswoman from the organization said the IOM is “unable to comment on
individual cases for confidentiality reasons.”

“In this instance, our processes were followed, and we firmly refute any
allegations to the contrary,” the spokeswoman said. “IOM works to help protect
people against trafficking, and aims to provide safe and regular pathways for
migration, save lives and protect people on the move.”

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A Geneva-based spokesperson for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for
Human Rights, also known as the U.N. human rights office, said in an emailed
statement that colleagues at the office “had brief exchanges with the person in
question, as well as a third party” before forwarding the information to “the
relevant U.N.-mandated agencies who handle such matters.”

“It is of serious concern that his whereabouts remain unknown,” the spokesperson
added.

Babar Baloch, a spokesman for UNHCR, responding more generally about Uyghur
asylum cases, said the refugee agency “does its utmost to provide protection and
assistance to people in need of international protection whoever and wherever
they are, in line with its mandate.”

“Due to confidentiality and protection-related reasons, UNHCR is not in a
position to publicly detail its approach to individual cases. States have the
primary responsibility to provide safety to those seeking asylum,” Baloch added.

Beijing places strict control on international travel from Xinjiang, including
the widespread confiscation of Uyghurs’ passports, an effort to prevent human
rights groups and Western governments from gaining insight into the crackdown in
the region. Testimonies like Rahman’s would have been especially valuable, as he
said he witnessed arbitrary detention, ill-treatment and forced reeducation in
Xinjiang as late as 2023, despite Beijing’s claims that mass internment has
ended.

“EVERY DAY, I MONITORED WHAT THOSE PEOPLE WERE DOING, WATCHING THEIR ACTIVITIES
WITH MY OWN EYES, SO TO SPEAK.”

Play to listen as Abdureqip speaks in Uyghur about his experiences.

Listen
9 sec
SettingsOptions

“Every day, I monitored what those people were doing, watching their activities
with my own eyes, so to speak.”

Rahman said he put himself in the hands of human smugglers to leave China,
believing that was his only way to get out. He traveled from his hometown of
Kucha in Xinjiang to Guangxi in southern China, then into Vietnam and over the
border to Cambodia — about 2,300 miles away. His exact journey through Vietnam
and into Cambodia is not known, but that broad route is popular with Chinese
traffickers supplying labor to criminal organizations running online scam
operations in Cambodia.

Hundreds of thousands of people are enslaved in similar compounds across
Southeast Asia, according to estimates in a 2023 U.N. report. They toil
around-the-clock at computer screens to dupe victims, increasingly in Western
countries, out of their savings through fake online romances and bogus
investment schemes.

The Post reconstructed Rahman’s case through extensive voice notes and text
messages that he sent to people on the outside when he was in the facility here
in western Cambodia. They include Uyghur activists, one of whom conducted an
hour-long interview with him about his life in Xinjiang, and officials at the
IOM and the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The Post also obtained and examined Cambodian police documents and interviewed
nine Cambodian police and immigration officials, as well as independent rescuers
and trafficking experts. Most spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the
sensitivity of the matter or because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
The Post also visited the area where Rahman was held and spoke to local
residents and rescuers to understand the conditions inside the compound. At
least six other Uyghur Muslims have escaped Xinjiang in a similar way, knowing
they would end up in scam compounds, people familiar with their cases say —
underscoring the desperation to leave, no matter the destination.

The Post was unable to reach Rahman. Some details of his life in Xinjiang could
not be independently verified because of Beijing’s restrictions on accessing
court cases and official documents from the region as well as the risk to
Rahman’s family and friends if they were contacted by a Western news
organization. Where possible, The Post used satellite imagery, U.N. reports,
news reports and other publicly available information to corroborate Rahman’s
story, including material provided by Gene Bunin, founder of the Xinjiang
Victims Database, which documents those detained in Xinjiang and the facilities
they are held in, and the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), a think
tank in Canberra that runs a data project on Uyghur detention, reeducation and
other human rights violations.

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Chinese police records, shared with ASPI and reviewed by The Post, also show
that Rahman was repatriated to China by Cambodian authorities. The records
indicate that China said he was being investigated for fraud, alleging he
scammed people of money before leaving for Cambodia, and for illegally crossing
the border.

The Chinese Embassy in Phnom Penh did not respond to emails inquiring about
Rahman’s whereabouts, or if he has been charged with a crime. China’s foreign
affairs and public security ministries did not respond to detailed questions on
Rahman’s case and on the repatriation and treatment of Uyghurs more broadly. Sok
Someakhea, spokesman for Cambodia’s General Department of Immigration, said he
could not provide information about Rahman or confirm his deportation because it
is “personal information.”

Those who were in touch with Rahman say he strongly wished for his story to be
shared widely. They also believe publicly reporting his case will help push for
accountability within the agencies that they say failed to protect him.

“He said [to me], ‘I left [China] because I wanted to tell this story. I’m
living to tell the truth,’” said Abduweli Ayup, a Uyghur writer and activist
based in Norway who was in touch with Rahman throughout his time in Cambodia.
“No matter the cost it took to tell the truth, he wanted to do it.”

“We want to tell the Chinese government: We know who Abdureqip is, and whatever
you do to him, we are watching,” Ayup added.

“MY NAME IS ABDUREQIP RAHMAN. … MY HOMETOWN IS REGISTERED AS XINJIANG, AKSU
PREFECTURE, KUCHA CITY, KUCHA COUNTY.”

Listen
13 sec
SettingsOptions

My name is Abdureqip Rahman. My hometown is registered as Xinjiang, Aksu
Prefecture, Kuchar City, Kuchar County.

Kucha city, where Rahman was born, is a rugged, mountainous part of the Xinjiang
Uyghur Autonomous Region, as it is officially known. Even as a child, Rahman was
subject to rules different from those experienced by Han Chinese citizens. He
was forced to board at school once he reached the age of 12 and go home on
weekends only with permission, he recalled, according to a detailed biography he
provided to Ayup in an hour-long phone interview.

Rahman moved to the Xinjiang capital, Urumqi, some 300 miles away, to attend
high school. He was a minkaohan — a minority educated in Chinese, as opposed to
his own language — and in 2018 he earned a place studying engineering at a
university in Hangzhou in Zhejiang province.

Around the time that Rahman moved to Hangzhou, the authorities accelerated their
crackdown in Xinjiang, rounding up Uyghurs in staggering numbers — at its peak,
as many as 1 million people may have been imprisoned, scholars estimate — and
forcing them into reeducation camps and prisons under the banner of
counterterrorism, according to reports by human rights groups and Western and
other governments.

Rahman said he would return to Kucha during college breaks and find relatives
missing, taken away by the authorities without explanation, according to the
biographical interview he provided. On these trips home, he was also kept under
surveillance by local authorities, he said, told to report his activities and
notify them of his movements.

Rahman said he returned to Xinjiang in 2019 without graduating, citing
unspecified family reasons. His father has been detained since 2015.

Once in Xinjiang, according to the biographical interview, he said he was
required to get a new photo ID, provide samples of his voice, have his eyes
scanned, and record distinctive physical features. That information was fed into
databases that allow Beijing to track Uyghurs’ movements through facial
recognition and identify speakers in monitored conversations, human rights
groups say.

Whether because of his proficiency with computers or Mandarin language skills,
Rahman said he was tapped to work within the Justice Ministry’s Kucha county
branch. His tasks were just administrative at first, archiving prison cases
related to Kucha residents. But at the end of 2021, he said, he was transferred
to the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau, the agency responsible for enforcing the
crackdown, and sent to work inside a detention center in Kucha city.

Annotated satellite images of the Kucha detention compound

Kucha

CHINA

CAMBODIA

VIETNAM

Jan. 2017

Detention center where Rahman worked before fleeing

Detention center where Rahman worked before fleeing

1,000 feet

1,000 feet

June 2024

2,000 feet

2,000 feet

New

reeducation

camp

New

reeducation

camp

Road and bridge connecting the facilities

Road and bridge connecting the facilities

Detention

blocks in

the middle

Detention

blocks in

the middle

Originally a drug

rehab facility

Originally a drug

rehab facility

Watchtowers

Watchtowers

Images source: Maxar and Airbus

Kucha

CHINA

CAMBODIA

VIETNAM

Jan. 2017

Detention center where Rahman worked before fleeing

Detention center where Rahman worked before fleeing

1,000 feet

1,000 feet

June 2024

2,000 feet

2,000 feet

New

reeducation

camp

New

reeducation

camp

Road and bridge connecting the facilities

Road and bridge connecting the facilities

Detention

blocks in

the middle

Detention

blocks in

the middle

Originally a drug

rehab facility

Originally a drug

rehab facility

Watchtowers

Watchtowers

Images source: Maxar and Airbus

Kucha

CHINA

CAMBODIA

VIETNAM

Jan. 2017

Detention center where Rahman worked before fleeing

1,000 feet

1,000 feet

June 2024

2,000 feet

2,000 feet

Detention

blocks in

the middle

Detention

blocks in

the middle

New

reeducation

camp

Road and bridge connecting the facilities

Road and bridge connecting the facilities

Originally

a drug rehab

facility

Originally

a drug rehab

facility

Watchtowers

Watchtowers

Images source: Maxar and Airbus

Kucha

CHINA

CAMBODIA

VIETNAM

Jan. 2017

Detention center where Rahman worked before fleeing

Detention center where Rahman worked before fleeing

1,000 feet

1,000 feet

June 2024

2,000 feet

2,000 feet

Detention

blocks in

the middle

Detention

blocks in

the middle

New

reeducation

camp

New

reeducation

camp

Road and bridge connecting

the facilities

Road and bridge connecting

the facilities

Originally

a drug rehab

facility

Originally

a drug rehab

facility

Watchtowers

Watchtowers

Images source: Maxar and Airbus

Rahman said his job was to monitor the activities of detainees, according to the
biographical interview. He watched detainees as they went to bed and as they
woke, required to sing patriotic Chinese songs as soon as they were out of bed.
Rahman observed them watching Chinese propaganda on small televisions in their
cells. The detainees had to write down their thoughts about the Chinese system
in a daily journal a few times a day.

The worst part, he said, were the interrogations.

“THEY CALL OUT THE NAME OF THE PERSON THEY WANT TO INTERROGATE AND PUT SHACKLES
ON THEM AND TAKE THEM DOWNSTAIRS. THEY ASKED QUESTIONS, LIKE, ‘WERE YOU WITH
SO-AND-SO IN THIS PLACE AT THAT TIME?’ ‘DID YOU SAY OR DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS?’”

Listen
24 sec
SettingsOptions

They asked questions, like, “Did you do this in such and such a year? Were you
with so-and-so in this place at that time? Did you say or do something like
this?”

Prisoners were expected to confess to their “crimes,” he said — mostly religious
activity: praying in groups, studying Islam, reading the Quran or teaching the
Quran to their children. Those were enough for them to be labeled “extremist.”

Those who didn’t confess were locked in cramped, dark cells, he said, where they
could barely stand, or were made to sit in a “tiger chair” — a device used
across China that immobilizes suspects. Food was also withheld as punishment, he
said.

Rahman’s accounts are consistent with human rights reports on the treatment of
Uyghurs inside camps in Xinjiang. Rahman said he resigned in March 2022,
immediately raising suspicions among local Han Chinese officials. He was
questioned repeatedly, and the authorities seemed unsatisfied with his
explanation that he needed to look after his family given his father’s ongoing
detention.

Eventually, Rahman was accused of being a “double-faced person” — a political
term Beijing uses to brand Uyghurs as ideologically dangerous traitors. He said
he was detained, sentenced to a year in prison and held for eight months in
Guangxi province, where he was the only Uyghur prisoner. Rahman speculated that
he was initially kept away from other Uyghur prisoners to prevent him from
sharing his experiences with them.

He said he served the final four months of his sentence back in Xinjiang, in
Urumqi prison.

Rahman said he lived the life he had once monitored: belting out patriotic
Chinese songs, watching endless propaganda loops on television and writing his
daily reflections on the greatness of the Chinese system.



Rahman was released in August 2023 and said he immediately began preparing for
his escape, afraid that he would be rearrested and disappear into the penal
system, as his father had.

Rahman said he knew that his exit from Xinjiang would probably be quickly
recorded and would trigger notices to authorities across the country. To get
around the surveillance, he said he changed the digital identity information
stored on his phone and posed as a student.

“I WOULD HAVE ALERTED THE SYSTEM, AS THEY WOULD HAVE EASILY ACCESSED MY PROFILE
AND SEEN THAT I WAS MARKED. I WOULDN’T EVEN BE ABLE TO LEAVE XINJIANG.”

Listen
7 sec
SettingsOptions

I would have alerted the system, as they would have easily accessed my profile
and seen that I was marked. I wouldn’t even be able to leave Xinjiang.

By early November of last year, Rahman was in Thma Da, close to Cambodia’s
border with Thailand, inside a pastel yellow three-story compound with paint
peeling off its exterior and metal grates on its windows. Rescuers say the
journey from Guangxi to this part of Cambodia would have taken up to five days.

But he had traded one form of imprisonment for another. He spent his days
hunched over a computer screen, and used the small windows at night when he was
allowed to use his phone to contact people he believed could help him. Because
he never learned English, he used a translation app to communicate with U.N.
officials.

Cambodian police documents obtained by The Post and business registration
filings list the owner of the Thma Da compound as MDS Heng He Investment Co.
Ltd. The filings show the company was formed through a joint venture between a
Cambodian company controlled by Try Pheap — a Cambodian tycoon under U.S.
sanctions and an adviser to the country’s former prime minister and strongman
Hun Sen — and a Chinese company established in Cambodia in 2018. This
arrangement, researchers and officials say, is typical of online scam
operations, which are closely tied to Cambodia’s political elite and are
estimated to exceed $12.5 billion annually in returns for Cambodia, according to
the United States Institute of Peace.

Cambodia’s online scam industry “can be viewed as a state-run criminal
enterprise with compounds owned by senators, governors, cabinet members,
advisers to and family members of the prime minister,” Erin West, a California
prosecutor who specializes in cybercrime, told a U.S. House of Representatives
hearing in September.

The Heng He Group did not respond to an emailed request for comment. A
representative for Try Pheap did not respond to phone calls and emailed requests
for comment. Cambodian government officials have downplayed the extent of the
problem in the country, and say they are working to shut down such operations.

Compounds like the one Rahman was held in are expanding over a dedicated
5,700-acre site, The Post found on a recent visit to Thma Da. The area was
approved by the Cambodian government as a special economic zone that its
developers claimed would be home to leisure and tourism sites, according to the
site’s WeChat page.

Annotated satellite images of the Thma Da detention compound

CHINA

CAMBODIA

VIETNAM

Thma Da

April 2017

Hotel

Border

CAMBODIA

CAMBODIA

THAILAND

THAILAND

500 feet

Jan. 2023

Expanded hotel and casino complex that is now a scam compound

Border

Helicopter landing pad

CAMBODIA

THAILAND

Scam compound where Rahman was trafficked into

Border

New expansion of the complex

CAMBODIA

THAILAND

Images source: Maxar

CHINA

CAMBODIA

VIETNAM

Thma Da

April 2017

Hotel

Border

CAMBODIA

THAILAND

THAILAND

500 feet

Jan. 2023

Casino became

a scam complex

Border

Helicopter landing pad

CAMBODIA

THAILAND

Scam compound where Rahman was trafficked into

Scam compound where Rahman was trafficked into

Border

New expansion of the complex

New expansion of the complex

CAMBODIA

THAILAND

THAILAND

Images source: Maxar

CHINA

CAMBODIA

VIETNAM

Thma Da

April 2017

Hotel

Border

Border

CAMBODIA

THAILAND

THAILAND

500 feet

Jan. 2023

Expanded casino became a scam complex

Scam compound where Rahman was trafficked into

Helicopter landing pad

Border

Border

New expansion

of the complex

New expansion

of the complex

CAMBODIA

THAILAND

THAILAND

Images source: Maxar

CHINA

CAMBODIA

VIETNAM

Thma Da

April 2017

Hotel

Border

Border

CAMBODIA

THAILAND

500 feet

Jan. 2023

Scam compound where Rahman was trafficked into

Expanded casino became a scam complex

Border

Border

Helicopter landing pad

New expansion of the complex

CAMBODIA

THAILAND

THAILAND

Images source: Maxar

By late December, Rahman was subjected to stricter rules. He asked to leave the
compound, but could not afford to pay what his overseers said he owed for being
smuggled out of China. His Han Chinese bosses began to suspect he was contacting
authorities and Uyghur activists on the outside.

One in particular quizzed him repeatedly on how he — the only Uyghur he’d seen
in the compound in years — got there in the first place.

“SINCE THE DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY, BEEN ABOUT A COUPLE OF DAYS NOW. FOR THESE PAST
TWO DAYS, THIS PERSON’S EYES ARE FOCUSED ON ME AND ME ONLY.”

Listen
7 sec
SettingsOptions

Since the day before yesterday, been about a couple of days now. For these past
two days, this person’s eyes are focused on me and me only.

Ayup by then was in touch with every agency he believed could help Rahman: the
U.S. State Department, UNHCR, IOM and the U.N. human rights office. Ayup himself
was assisted by the IOM when he fled to Turkey with his family in 2015 and the
agency helped him get to Norway, where he now lives. He gathered all the
information he could on Rahman and passed it on to contacts at the State
Department, who promised to help facilitate the required screening that could
help Rahman get to the United States.

The IOM’s anti-trafficking officer based in Phnom Penh was also directly in
touch with Rahman, according to screenshots of messages, as was the head of the
U.N.’s human rights office in Cambodia.

Ayup was working these channels when he said Rahman reached out with an urgent
message: He said he believed he was about to be sold to another compound in the
region.

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“It was then that [the U.N.] took urgent action,” Ayup said. “[The IOM] told me,
‘We are going to save him.’ [The official] asked me to be prepared.”

Ayup urged Rahman to trust that he would be protected by the IOM and to listen
to those who came for him. An IOM official told Rahman he would be taken to a
safe house once they had secured his release, the texts show.

On the morning of Jan. 13, Rahman was handed over by an employee at the compound
to the police in charge of Thma Da commune, according to police documents.
Rahman immediately sent Ayup a video, just three seconds long, of himself
looking healthy in a white T-shirt and blue pants.

It was already past 3 a.m. in Norway, but Ayup was still up with his wife and
two daughters, who hugged him and celebrated.

“They won’t give you back now,” Ayup wrote to Rahman. “You are now free.”



There was no safe house. Rahman was first taken to the district police station
and then, according to Cambodian police officers interviewed by The Post, to the
provincial police headquarters in Pursat, a three-hour drive away.

Most people rescued from scam compounds are turned over to Cambodia’s
immigration department and repatriated, generally after paying a fee to cover
travel and food costs, officials and rescuers said.

Rahman was told he would be treated as an asylum seeker, but he was never
processed in Cambodia as a refugee, according to two Cambodian immigration
officials. His last known destination in Cambodia was the Office of
Counterterrorism and Transnational Crime under the Interior Ministry, according
to police documents reviewed by The Post — a transfer that implies he was
regarded as a criminal or terrorist threat from the outset, said people familiar
with Cambodian police bureaucracy. He was transferred there on Jan. 22,
according to the documents.

Officials at the counterterrorism and transnational crime office said Rahman was
never in their custody and declined to comment further.

The minister running the department is Dy Vichea, who is the son-in-law of Hun
Sen and the brother-in-law of the current prime minister, Hun Manet. Hun Sen,
who maintains significant political power, is one of Beijing’s closest allies in
the region.

On Jan. 30, Rahman borrowed a phone and sent Ayup a voice message. He said he
was still inside the Interior Ministry’s complex.

“THE PEOPLE WHO CAME WITH ME ARE GOING TO STAY FOR ONE OR TWO WEEKS. BUT THEY
TOLD ONLY ME TO PACK MY THINGS. … I DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE GOING TO DO WITH
ME; MAYBE THEY ARE TRANSFERRING ME SOMEWHERE ELSE?”

Listen
15 sec
SettingsOptions

But they only told me to pack my things, so now I am packing. I don’t know what
they are going to do with me, maybe transferring me somewhere else?

That was Rahman’s last communication. The Chinese police records shared with
ASPI and reviewed by The Post indicate he was transferred over to the Chinese
authorities in Cambodia the next day, and was sent back on Feb. 1 to Kucha,
where he was interrogated by the Public Security Bureau.

Ayup spent the next six months trying to get information about Rahman’s
whereabouts from the same officials whom he was in contact with on the case: at
the State Department, at the IOM and at UNHCR. The vast majority of his
messages, he said, were ignored.

One State Department official from the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and
Labor told him in a message in June that after Rahman came into the custody of
Cambodian authorities, “the concern is he may have been returned to China.” The
State Department, in a statement to The Post, said it is “aware of the
situation” but that officials “are not going to comment on specific cases.”

“The Department has and continues to remind all governments to respect the
principle of non-refoulement and to refrain from returning any person to a state
where there are substantial grounds to believe they would be subjected to
persecution, torture, or other ill treatment,” the statement said.

At least one other young Uyghur in Cambodia had reached out to Ayup through
relatives after fleeing Xinjiang. Ayup referred the case to the IOM in July, but
did not receive any follow-up and has tried to find other ways to help him.

“How can we trust them [with] such a case again?” he said.

ABOUT THIS STORY

Pei-lin Wu in Taipei, Taiwan, and Christian Shepherd in Singapore contributed to
this report.

Illustrations by James Lee Chiahan. Art direction by Andrew Braford. Design and
development by Hailey Haymond. Graphics by Álvaro Valiño. Video editing by
Zoeann Murphy. Design editing by Joe Moore. Graphics editing by Emily M. Eng.

Editing by Peter Finn. Project editing by Akilah Johnson. Copy editing by
Vanessa Larson.

Additional support from Grace Moon, Jordan Melendrez, Nina Zafar, Maddie
Driggers, Sarah Parnass, Monica Campbell, Sarah Murray and Kenisha Malcolm.


REPRESSION'S LONG ARM: MORE STORIES

PreviousNext
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110 Comments
Shibani MahtaniShibani Mahtani is a Singapore-based international investigative
correspondent for The Washington Post. She focuses on accountability-driven
investigations across the Asia-Pacific region. She joined The Post's foreign
desk in 2018 as the Southeast Asia and Hong Kong Bureau Chief after seven years
as a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal. @shibanimahtani
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