Wumaier claims she was previously under house arrest in the XUAR, where authorities are believed to have held up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in a vast network of internment camps as part of a campaign of extralegal detention launched in early 2017.
Abdusalam said he “never thought this day would come” in a tweet on Friday, thanking Australian government officials, his legal team, human rights groups, and journalists that helped to reunite him with his family. He also thanked the Chinese officials “who decided to give my wife back her passport.”
“My dream is for all my fellow Uyghurs to be reunited with their families,” he wrote, referring to members of his ethnic group in the diaspora and in the XUAR whose family members have disappeared into the camp system or sent to prison for allegedly displaying “extremist” behavior.
