Former detainee in Chinese internment camp denied visa to visit US

A former detainee in a Chinese internment camp for Muslims said Thursday that his application for a visa to the United States was turned down even though he had been invited to speak to congressional commission, according to the Associated Press.

Kazakh national Omir Bekali told the AP his application was rejected by the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul after he had been asked to visit Washington by the chairs of the Congressional-Executive Committee on China, an independent agency monitoring human rights in China.

{mosads}“They kept going back and forth. Why did they invite me and then reject my visa?” Bekali told the AP. “I’ve received so many threats after speaking out, I feel like they should be able to do at least this simple request.”

The AP reported that Bekali was one of the first to speak publicly about his time in an internment camp in China’s Xinjiang region, where at least 1 million Muslims are estimated to be detained.

Bekali told the AP that he wants to bring his family to either Europe or the U.S., where he said he will feel safe from China.

“I’m scared China will find some way to hurt me or threaten me,” he said. “Every day I have nightmares, I can’t sleep at night.”

The State Department declined to discuss Bekali’s case.

“We continue to urge China to reverse its counterproductive policies that conflate terrorism with peaceful religious and political expression, and to release all those arbitrarily detained in these camps,” the department told the AP in a statement.