A young Kazakh from Xinjiang fled to Kazakhstan and was recently arrested by the local police, currently detained in a city in the border area between China and Kazakhstan. Local human rights organizations issued an urgent warning, concerned that the young man might be “silently extradited” back to China, facing the risk of being detained.
According to a report by Radio Free Asia on May 16, the Kazakh human rights organization “Atajurt Voluntary Organization” informed that in late March this year, they established contact with a 23-year-old Kazakh youth named Yerzhanat Abai, who claimed to be from Gongliu County, Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang, China, born on April 11, 2002. He entered Kazakhstan on March 27, 2025, and sought help from the organization four days later.
According to the organization’s founder Serikzhan Bilash, on March 31, when Yerzhanat visited the organization’s office in Almaty, he expressed concerns about his personal safety, preferring not to disclose his identity details at that time, only briefly stating his situation in front of the camera. He mentioned that he would only reveal his circumstances if he was arrested by the police and faced the risk of being deported back to China. Yerzhanat mentioned the danger of being detained in a “concentration camp” if returned to China.
Earlier this week, the organization received a report from Yerzhanat’s friend that he had been detained by the Kazakh authorities. Atajurt Voluntary Organization subsequently confirmed Yerzhanat’s disappearance and officially initiated an emergency human rights assistance mechanism to raise international awareness about his case.
Serikzhan Bilash revealed that Yerzhanat is currently detained in the Panfilov City detention center in Zarkent County, Almaty region, Kazakhstan, about 40 kilometers from the Khorgas border crossing in Xinjiang, China. He stated, “He could be secretly transported to China at any time by either Xinjiang State Security or Kazakhstan’s National Security Service, and no one knows his exact situation. Only by making this matter public to the world can the Kazakhstani government prevent his extradition.”
Currently, the reasons and procedures for Yerzhanat’s detention in Kazakhstan remain opaque, and the Kazakhstani Interior Ministry has not responded to inquiries.
Reports indicate that calls to the Chinese Consulate General in Almaty have gone unanswered.
The Kazakhs are one of the main ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, with extensive ethnic and linguistic ties to Kazakhstan. In the past, many Xinjiang Kazakhs had frequent interactions with their relatives in Kazakhstan, but in recent years, Chinese authorities have strengthened border controls, leading to many people going missing, being detained, or forced to undergo “transformation” education, and even being imprisoned.
The “Atajurt Voluntary Organization” has been documenting and publicly disclosing cases of disappearances, detentions, and persecution of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang since 2017, and the testimonies they have gathered have been used as investigative materials by various international organizations.
According to reports from the United Nations and several human rights organizations, since 2017, the Chinese government has established a large number of “vocational skills training centers” in Xinjiang under the guise of “de-extremification,” where Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other Muslim ethnic minorities are detained for political education, language assimilation, and forced labor. Despite the Chinese government’s denial of the existence of a “concentration camp” system, there has been widespread skepticism from the international community.
Serikzhan Bilash mentioned that despite waning international attention, the persecution by Xinjiang authorities has not ceased: “Many young people in Xinjiang are frequently summoned by public security or sent to training centers under various pretexts, claiming to provide job opportunities, but actually arranging for them to work in mainland Chinese factories, mostly in hazardous chemical plants, with lower salaries compared to Xinjiang.”
Yerken, a Kazakh resident from Ili in Xinjiang, stated that many young Kazakhs attempt to escape from China but encounter significant restrictions: “The situation in Xinjiang is very unstable. So, there are often people escaping here. Although China and Kazakhstan have signed a mutual visa waiver agreement, Kazakhs in China are unable to obtain passports for foreign travel, and those who possess passports may have them confiscated by the police. However, Han Chinese can obtain passports to travel abroad.”
In recent years, countries in Central Asia, such as Kazakhstan, have become increasingly economically dependent on China, adopting a generally discreet or suppressive attitude towards the refugee issue from Xinjiang. Several cases have shown that some fugitives are informally extradited back to China without due process.