An Australian Uighur man whose family was under house arrest in China has been reunited with his wife, and met his three-year-old son for the first time, after they landed in Sydney.

Sadam Abudusalam’s wife, Nadila Wumaier, and his son, Lufty, had been trapped in China’s Xinjiang province since 2017 after Chinese police confiscated their passports. Neither Wumaier nor their son, who is an Australian citizen, had been allowed to leave the country despite repeated requests.

Abudusalam confirmed on Friday his family had landed in Sydney the previous day. He thanked human rights activists and Australian diplomats including foreign minister, Marise Payne.

China’s Uighur ethnic group, who are majority Muslim, are persecuted by the government, subjected to forced sterilisation, and have their language suppressed. More than 1 million Uighurs are held in detention centres.

Earlier this year, Abudusalam said his wife was threatened by Chinese police after he raised her case on the ABC’s Q+A program in February.

On Friday, he posted on Twitter that he was “overjoyed” to have them back.

“I never thought this day would come,” he said. “Thank you to Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, [former ABC journalist] Sophie McNeill and Four Corners and every single human rights activist who covered my story and told the world what is happening to the Uyghurs. Thank you to the officials who decided to give my wife back her passport.”

Abudusalam, who is an Australian citizen, married Wumaier, a Chinese citizen, in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, in 2016.

He told Guardian Australia in a 2019 interview the pair discovered Wumaier was pregnant while on their honeymoon. She applied for a visa to come to Australia, but was rejected, and returned to Xinjiang because she was suffering ill health from her pregnancy and wanted to be closer to her mother.

Shortly after she returned, her passport was confiscated, and Abudusalam then discovered she had been taken to a detention centre in Xinjiang when their son was six months old.

After he was featured on the ABC’s Four Corners program in 2019, Payne formally requested the Chinese government allow Wumaier and Lufty to leave the country.

Abudusalam’s lawyer, Michael Bradley, said Wumaier’s passport was given back to her two or three months ago and the family was looking forward to finally “starting a life together”.

“It was pretty much out of the blue that authorities there said they were giving her passport back and allowing her to travel,” he said.

“So we jumped on that and started making all the arrangements. It is a pretty strange situation to be starting your married life after such a delay, and for Sadam, meeting his son for the first time.”

Bradley said after Wumaier and Lufty adjusted to the new country and language “they just want to have a normal life like anyone else”. The lawyer said the next step was to obtain Australian citizenship for Wumaier.

“Marise Payne did take a personal interest in Sadam’s case, and pressed very hard on his behalf. As soon as it became clear they could travel, her department pulled out every stop. They were fantastic, I can’t speak highly enough of them,” he said.

“The only thing left now is to get Sadam’s wife citizenship as well, which shouldn’t be a problem from here … then they are all good forever.”

— by Naaman Zhou in the Guardian, Dec 11, 2020 at 07.40 GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/11/australian-uighur-man-reunited-with-wife-and-son-who-had-been-under-house-arrest-in-china-since-2017