“Dolkun Isa came to Turkey to visit Erkin Alptekin, the former president of the Uyghur World Congress, currently hospitalized in Ankara. Unfortunately, the passport control police at Ankara airport did not allow him to enter Turkey. Mr. Isa has been sent back to Germany, ”he told reporters at Ankara Esenboga Airport in the capital.

Dogun, a law professor at Hacı Bayram University in Ankara, said that just days after the previous ban was lifted, the Turkish Interior Ministry imposed a second blacklist on Isa’s behalf on the 6th. September.

“The Turkish government has acted in a shameful manner. From here we can see that the decisions made by the courts in Turkey have no effect. The ban on Mr. Isa is against Turkish law and illegal so that we will sue the Turkish government, ”he said.

In a statement released by the WUC, Isa said he was “deeply disheartened that the Turkish authorities are still denying me entry, despite my ban being lifted by the Ankara Administrative Court.”

The Turkish authorities again unfairly denied me entry for something I had never done, ”added Isa, who had obtained a master’s degree in political science in Turkey in the mid-1990s before graduating. political asylum in Germany.

“Since 2008, Mr. Isa has been denied entry to Turkey due to allegations of threats to national security,” WUC said.

He was refused entry to Turkey in August 2008 and October 2011, and was the subject of a red notice issued by INTERPOL at the request of the Chinese government from 1997 to 2018, the group said.

“Mr. Isa has been falsely accused of threatening national security in Turkey,” WUC said.

“The WUC reiterates once again that Turkey and the international community are diligently considering political demands sent by the Chinese government instead of accepting them without any legal process or proof,” he said.

Turkey is home to around 50,000 Uyghurs, who share linguistic and cultural ties with the Mediterranean country.

Last week, Isa opened a “Wall of the Disappeared” exhibition in front of the UN in Geneva with images of Uyghurs missing and suspected of being held in internment camps in Xinjiang.

“We at the Uyghur World Congress aim to counter China’s propaganda and disinformation campaign at the UN by holding our own exhibitions with facts and truth about Chinese atrocities,” said Isa, whose mother is died at the age of 78 in a Xinjiang internment camp in May 2018 after serving her sentence. one year for “religious extremism”.

Reported and translated by Alim Seytoff and Mamatjan Juma for the RFA Uyghur service. Written in English by Paul Eckert.