Rising Uygur soccer player Erfan Hezim back with Chinese team after release from Xinjiang internment camp
- Hezim, 20, resurfaced on social media and returned to training – with a message of ‘thank you’ to the Communist Party and Chinese government
- An increasing number of detainees have been discharged from the camps in the past months, activists say
A promising young Uygur soccer player who was reportedly detained last spring in an internment camp in China’s far western Xinjiang region has been released and returned to his soccer club.
Erfan Hezim, 20, is among the increasing number of detainees who have trickled out of the camps in the past months.
Hezim was detained in February last year soon after he returned home to Xinjiang from a trip to Spain and Dubai for training and matches, according to Radio Free Asia.
His detention prompted a statement in June from the International Federation of Professional Footballers (FIFPro), which called for his “immediate release so that he can be reunited with his family and continue his football career”.
Just turned 19 at the time of his detention, the rising soccer star was among the estimated 1 million Uygurs, Kazakhs and other Muslim ethnic minorities ensnared by Xinjiang’s sprawling network of indoctrination camps, where they were forced to denounce their faith and pledge loyalty to the Communist Party, according to accounts shared by former inmates with foreign media.
Despite a mounting outcry from the international community, Beijing has insisted that the camps are “vocational training centres” that are necessary to counter “religious extremism” and ensure stability.