Cairo (AFP)

Arrested in broad daylight, handcuffed and blindfolded, Abdelmalek, a Uyghur student in Egypt, was interrogated by Egyptian police, but also, to his surprise, by Chinese officials, in the police station in Cairo where he was placed on guard at sight.

Three Chinese speaking men spoke to him using his Chinese name, not his Uyghur name.

"They never said their name, or who they were exactly," told AFP the 27-year-old, who uses an alias for security reasons.

Since a series of bloody attacks attributed to Uyghurs, many human rights organizations have accused Beijing of increasing its crackdown on the predominantly Muslim and Turkic minority of Xinjiang in northwestern China.

The Chinese government, which imposes strict security measures in this vast territory, is suspected of having interned up to one million people in camps.

Beijing denies this figure and speaks of "vocational training centers" to fight Islamist radicalization.

Many Muslim countries, themselves accused of using the fight against terrorism to violate fundamental rights like Egypt, have lent their support to China.

According to NGOs, more than 90 Uighurs were arrested in July 2017 in Egypt during a crackdown, including many students in Islamic theology at the prestigious Al-Azhar religious university, such as Abdelmalek.

"The Chinese government says you are terrorists," the Egyptian police said to fellow detainees, the young man reports. "We replied that we were only students of Al-Azhar."

The Egyptian Ministry of the Interior and the Chinese Embassy in Cairo have not responded to repeated requests from AFP.

- "If scared" -

China is one of the biggest investors in Egypt, relying on the world's second-largest economy to finance its massive infrastructure projects.

Bilateral trade reached a record 12.3 billion euros last year.

Three weeks before the 2017 haul, Egypt and China signed an agreement on "the fight against terrorism".

After a few days of interrogation, Abdelmalek was sent to Tora, a prison in southern Cairo, where many political prisoners are being held, according to NGOs.

After 60 days of detention, the student left the country for Turkey, an important land of Uyghur immigration.

Ahmed, 26, was also arrested in July 2017, along with several worshipers, when black vans tumbled past the Moussa Ibn Nassir mosque.

The young man was also transferred to Tora: "I was very scared when I arrived, it was extremely dark".

"I was afraid they would deliver us to the Chinese authorities," Ahmed added. During his 11 days in police custody, Chinese people questioned him about his father living in Xinjiang. "Where is he and how is he sending you money?", He was asked.

Released, Ahmed fled to Istanbul. He then learns that his father has disappeared in Xinjiang. "I still do not know if he's dead or alive," Ahmed told AFP two years later.

- "Unprecedented" -

The Uyghur community of Egypt, which has up to 6,000 members, now has only 50 families, said Abdulweli Ayup, a Uyghur linguist based in Norway, who researched Uighurs in Egypt.

"For the Uighurs, it is a nightmare that a Muslim brother can invite Chinese officials to question you," he observes.

Abdelmalek and Ahmed have experienced "the same procedures (...) as in internment camps in China," says Ayup, ensuring he heard concordant testimony. "It is not a coincidence."

"China is trying to redefine human rights in terms of economic development (...), this is good for many countries" like Egypt, judge independent researcher Adrian Zenz, who has mapped camps in Xinjiang.

States that collaborate with Beijing can "in return expect significant favors," he says.

Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Hafez said the Uighurs expelled from Egypt had been expelled because of the expiry of their residence permit. "Any other reason" is ruled out, he said.

Mr. Hafez did not answer AFP's questions about the detention of these people.

For Darren Byler, a specialist in Xinjiang, Beijing has tried to interrogate and detain Uighurs living abroad. But "the autonomy with which the Chinese authorities were allowed to operate in Egypt is unprecedented," he said.

Two years later, the fate of the Uighurs expelled from Egypt continues to worry the community. "We have not known for years about the fate of these people and our families," said Abdelmalek.

© 2019 AFP