For many Uyghurs who have built new lives in Australia, distance from China has not brought complete freedom from fear. A new Human Rights Watch report says Chinese authorities are questioning Uyghur Australians who visit Xinjiang and pressing some of them to collect information about Uyghur activists, community groups and language schools after they return to Australia. The findings show how repression can cross borders and follow families thousands of kilometres from China.
Interrogation and Monitoring
Human Rights Watch interviewed 11 Uyghur Australian citizens and permanent residents in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide in April and May 2026. Several described strict checks before travel, official monitoring during visits and questioning by police. Three non-activist Uyghur Australians said their relatives in Xinjiang had to seek government permission before they could visit. One visitor said he was interrogated more than a dozen times, including one session lasting over seven hours, and was asked for addresses and phone numbers of prominent Uyghur activists in Australia.
Language Schools Targeted
This is especially disturbing because the pressure does not stop with political activists. According to the report, Chinese officials also asked visitors about Uyghur weekend schools in Australia, including the names of teachers and children who attend. Australia is home to about 5,000 Uyghurs and has four Uyghur language weekend schools, in Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. These schools help families preserve a language and culture that many fear is being weakened by Chinese state policy in Xinjiang.
Families Used as Pressure
Such questioning turns family visits into tools of control. Uyghurs who have spent years separated from parents, spouses, siblings or children may feel they cannot refuse demands made by Chinese officials. Their relatives inside China can become a source of pressure. A person living safely in Australia may still worry that speaking at a protest, attending a cultural event or meeting an activist could create problems for family members in Xinjiang.
Transnational Repression
That fear can silence an entire community without a single arrest taking place in Australia. People may stop attending demonstrations, avoid organizations, withdraw children from language classes or keep away from outspoken community members. This is the purpose and danger of transnational repression: a government uses intimidation, surveillance and family pressure to restrict freedoms beyond its own territory. Human Rights Watch says these tactics have created a chilling effect on Uyghur community life in Australia.
Australia’s Responsibility
The Australian government told Human Rights Watch that foreign interference and transnational repression are taken seriously and that it is unacceptable for any foreign government to prevent people in Australia from exercising fundamental rights and freedoms. That position is important, but statements alone are not enough. Australia should provide safe ways for victims to report threats, investigate possible criminal conduct, improve travel warnings for people at risk and continue pressing for the reunification of divided families.
Wider Repression in Xinjiang
China has repeatedly presented its policies in Xinjiang as measures aimed at security, stability and development. But Human Rights Watch has previously concluded that Chinese authorities have committed crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims, documenting mass arbitrary detention, torture, enforced disappearances, cultural persecution and extensive surveillance. Beijing rejects allegations of systematic abuse.
What Safety Should Mean
The latest reports from Australia raise a wider question: what does safety mean if people who escaped repression still fear its reach abroad? Sovereignty is not only about protecting borders. It is also about ensuring that residents can speak, organize, teach their language and maintain family and cultural ties without intimidation from a foreign state.
Australia should make clear that Uyghur Australians do not have to choose between seeing their families and exercising their freedoms. Chinese authorities should end efforts to recruit visitors as informants, stop pressure on relatives and allow Uyghurs to communicate and travel freely. A country that tries to control diaspora communities through fear is not demonstrating confidence or stability. It is showing how far it is willing to go to silence voices it cannot control.
Freedom should not end at the point where Beijing’s political sensitivities begin.