Uyghurs in Pakistan

Some members of ethnic minorities of China, primarily Muslim Uyghurs and Tajiks from Xinjiang, have historically migrated to and settled in the northern parts of Pakistan.[2] The earliest migrants, numbering in the thousands, came in as traders during the late 19th and early 20th centuries when the area that is Pakistan was still under British rule. Most of these Uyghurs used to have warehouses and residences in towns in the North and in parts of upper Punjab and used to travel between Kashgar and Yarkand and these places, regularly. Others came in the 1940s in fear of communist persecution.[3] A few hundred more fled to Pakistan in the aftermath of a failed uprising in Khotan in 1954.[4] Later waves of migration came in 1963 and again in 1974.[5] Some Pakistani descendants who previously lived in Xinjiang, especially at Kashgar, have also moved back to Pakistan with their Uyghur spouses.[6][7][8]

Beginning in the 1980s, Pakistan began to become a major transit point for Uyghurs going on the hajj; the temporary Uyghur settlements that formed there became the focal points of later, more permanent communities, as Uyghurs returning from their pilgrimage or from further studies at schools in Egypt and Saudi Arabia decided to settle down in Pakistan rather than return to China.[9] As of 2020, community leaders estimated their total numbers at 2,000[1] to 3,000 people, with 800 at Gilgit, another 2,000 at Rawalpindi, 100 at the border town of Sust on the Karakoram Highway and the remainder scattered throughout the rest of the country.[2]

China is suspicious of the Uyghur community in Pakistan, generally viewing them as supporters of the East Turkestan independence movement. Pakistan has given them a friendly reception, but shows a cool attitude towards any promotion of separatism.[10] China claims that members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement have taken refuge in Lahore.[5] In 1997, fourteen Uyghur students with Chinese nationality studying in Pakistan were deported back to China after they organised a sympathy protest in support of riots in Ghulja; Amnesty International claims that they were executed.[11] In 2009, another nine Uyghurs captured in Waziristan were extradited to China.[12] As of 2015, the Pakistani government asserted that Uyghur militants were no longer present in the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan.[13] However, some sources claim that there still exist suspicious Uyghur groups, mostly young militant students, hidden by the Pakistani authorities, in Mansehra District of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, and in parts of Rawalpindi city, Punjab.[14]

Many Uyghurs in Pakistan run small businesses.[3] In recent years, they have moved into the import-export field, buying Chinese ceramics, textiles, and other products from Xinjiang for resale in Pakistan.[15] The Uyghur community are usually well-integrated into Pakistani society. Intermarriage is common now, and most prefer to speak Urdu rather than Uyghur.[3]

• Abdul Rasul, Pakistani citizen of Uyghur ethnicity, leader of the Asian Muslims Human Rights Bureau.[21][22]
• Hakim Said, Pakistani herbalist.[23]
• Sadia Rashid, Pakistani academic.[24]

• Chinese people in Pakistan

• Haider, Ziad (2005), "Sino-Pakistan relations and Xinjiang's Uyghurs: Politics, Trade, and Islam along the Karakoram Highway" (PDF), Asian Survey, 45 (4): 522–545, doi:10.1525/as.2005.45.4.522, archived from the original on 11 February 2013
• Rahman, Anwar (2005), Sinicization beyond the Great Wall: China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, Troubador Publishing, ISBN 978-1-904744-88-7
• Starr, S. Frederick (2004), Xinjiang: China's Muslim borderland, M.E. Sharpe, ISBN 978-0-7656-1318-9
• "Displaced dreams: Uighur families have no place to call home in G-B", The Express Tribune, 21 May 2015, retrieved 21 May 2015