Read on Twitter
on Ayoob Mohammed, a name that everyone should know.@CANADALAND's @tlmsy did such an amazing job and the case deserves Omar Khadr-like attention but doesn't get it because, like the rest of the Uyghur-Canadian diaspora, they are invisibilized/erased by competing imperialisms. https://twitter.com/CANADALAND/status/1338445127753355265
As we know, when the facts do not fit the frames, people are quick to dismiss it, and the appropriate outrage at injustice does not materialize.
If Ayoob were not Uyghur, the left would be outraged.
If Ayoob was not alleged to be a terrorist, the right would be outraged.
If Ayoob were not Uyghur, the left would be outraged.
If Ayoob was not alleged to be a terrorist, the right would be outraged.
Ayoob and his wife, Melike, met on social networking platform Hi5. Melike notices that Ayoob's picture contained Artush figs and messages him. Turns out that they are both from Artush City in Xinjiang/East Turkestan. Their love story at the core of all this.
Ayoob eventually opened up Melike about his horrific past, a story that her cry. Ayoob asked if she could accept him and his trauma, but Melike was amazed by how a person who had suffered that level of abuse and injustice could keep holding on to hope. They marry and have kids.
The story that Ayoob shares with Melike is one of persecution, unjust detention, and suffering. As the editors aptly state, Ayoob and the 22 Uyghur men who end up kidnapped, detained and abused/tortured at Guantanamo Bay without charge "keep colliding with history".
In the 80s, during Deng Xiaoping's reform and opening period, there was brief junction of liberalization where Uyghur culture, history, and academic production thrived. But as @robertsreport details, after the Tiananmen Square massacre and fall of USSR, the CCP begins crackdown
In the 90s, the Xinjiang region saw intensified controls over religious activity and wholesale reinforcement of military and security preparedness. A "People's War" against Uyghur separatists was declared in 98. This is what Ayoob grew up in before 9/11.
https://www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder/asia/china-bck1017.htm
https://www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder/asia/china-bck1017.htm
The government's draconian policies that restricted freedoms of association, mass surveillance, and discrimination against Uyghurs pushed Ayoob's family to send him for study abroad in the US.
Even then, getting a passport was very difficult and risky. He had to leave Xinjiang and go to Pakistan to apply for a visa to send him to the US. While awaiting processing, Ayoob goes to Afghanistan to travel. It is the worst timing. 9/11 happens and US invades Afghanistan.
Ayoob tries to get back to Pakistan, but is beaten and robbed trying to board a bus. He then is helped to flee to a village in the mountains where there are also Uyghur diaspora. However the village is near Tora Bora and gets swept up in massive US bombing runs.
Eventually, Ayoob is sold by Pakistani kidnappers to the Americans for large bounties ($5000 a person) for anyone "linked to Al Qaeda". He was first detained in Kandahar where he was brutalized. Soldiers came in during the night to beat them and shat on the Quran in their faces.
After transfer to Guantanamo Bay, his abuse at the hands of his US captors escalated to the point of torture. He recalls being kept naked in isolation for days at a time, tear gassed until he vomited for refusal to leave his cell, beaten, forcibly shaved, sexually violated.
Yet he and other Guantanamo Bay detainees resisted in the face of violence. They staged a hunger strike to demand being able to send/receive letters to family, to have phone calls - promises that were made and broken. Half his cell block once threatened to hang themselves.
In 2005, a US Military Tribunal found that Ayoob was not an enemy combatant and being held without just cause. His detention (not to mention all the abuse and indignities he suffered) was illegal. But even with this, there was nowhere to go. It was too dangerous to return home.
Canada would not take him. And neither would the US, as Republicans nixed a program that would have resettled Uyghur Guantanamo detainees in Virginia. Mitch McConnell labelled them "terrorist-trained detainees", stoking xenophobic fears. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=7423474&page=1
As US diplomats lobbied over 100 countries to take former Uyghur detainees like Ayoob, they were rejected one by one, for fears of angering China and losing development money/contracts. In 2006, Albania finally agreed to take Ayoob and 4 others.
Which brings us back to our original love story between Ayoob and Melike. After giving birth to their first child, Melike had to return to Montreal for thyroid treatment. She made several attempts to sponsor Ayoob over as her spouse, but was rejected each time by @CitImmCanada.
Refusing to acknowledge the Guantanamo Tribunal acquittal of Ayoob, @CitImmCanada officials have instead adopted the Chinese government's line - that the village of Uyghurs in Afghanistan was instead an Al-Qaeda training camp and Ayoob is a member of ETIM.
ETIM stands for the East Turkestan Islamic Movement. Despite no direct evidence, Canada continues to propagate these spurious ties. Yet ETIM was never listed as a terror group by Canada. As @robertsreport writes, ETIM barely existed and was more an idea. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/11/10/why-did-the-united-states-take-chinas-word-on-supposed-uighur-terrorists/
Rather, the spectre of ETIM was co-opted by the CCP after 9/11 to serve their policy goals: economic exploitation and securitization of non-Han Indigenous populations in Xinjiang. The US agreed to list ETIM as a terror group to secure Chinese acquiescence to their War on Iraq.
Meanwhile, Ayoob remains in exile in Albania, painfully separated from his ailing wife and two children in Montreal. He is not eligible for Albanian citizenship, forced to work under the table, and not allowed to travel outside the country.
Even though Melike is sick with her thyroid condition, she must also balance working and being a single parent for her children - a precarious dance. Having Ayoob with her in Canada would be immensely helpful to her and her kids. Their cases has been going for years.
We cannot properly explain @CitImmCanada's continuing intransigence with Ayoob's spousal sponsorship case without understanding the racist discourses that ascribe guilt to Muslims, laundered through security and terrorism rhetoric. Despite being the victim, he is the offender.
Rather than alleging that Ayoob is a terrorist outright, in their second application, @CitImmCanada has simply refused their spousal application without reasons. When their lawyer demanded reasons, he was told none would be forthcoming. When media asked, IRCC only said "security"
Which takes us back to lack of political will.
Liberals/Conservatives have not taken up their cases given their investment in opaque and unaccountable Canadian national security frameworks that disproportionately targets Muslim bodies.
The Left is rendered immobile by tankies.
Liberals/Conservatives have not taken up their cases given their investment in opaque and unaccountable Canadian national security frameworks that disproportionately targets Muslim bodies.
The Left is rendered immobile by tankies.
Justice for Ayoob Mohammed means fighting racism, fighting imperialism, and supporting those who have been violently oppressed by their global manifestations.
Demand that @marcomendicino, @JustinTrudeau allow Ayoob to Canada! #JusticeForAyoob! https://www.change.org/p/marco-mendicino-reunite-ayub-khalil-and-salahidin-with-their-families
Demand that @marcomendicino, @JustinTrudeau allow Ayoob to Canada! #JusticeForAyoob! https://www.change.org/p/marco-mendicino-reunite-ayub-khalil-and-salahidin-with-their-families
@threadreaderapp unroll
