Dutch-Uyghur Air Force officer suspended after China imprisons his family

The Ministry of Defense suspended Dutch-Uyghur M. J. (35) as an air force commander after he found out China had imprisoned his mother and sister-in-law. He went to the Ministry for help getting his family out of the Chinese concentration camps, but instead, Defense investigated him and concluded that he was “vulnerable to unwanted influence,” Follow the Money (FTM) reports.

More than four years later, J.'s relatives are still in China’s “vocational education and training centers,” and Defense still hasn’t found a new position for him.

J. last spoke to his mother in 2017, when China started arresting Uyghur people on a large scale. In tears, his mother told him they’d better not have further contact due to the political situation in Xinjiang. “I hated being cut off from my family, but thought it would be for the best, that it wouldn’t put their safety at risk,” J. said to FTM.

According to J., during his screenings to work for Defense, he told employees of the military intelligence service MIVD about the situation in Xinjiang and the Chinese regime's continued persecution of the Uyghur people. They didn’t consider it a problem then. “I never withheld any information,” J. said to FTM.

Two months after speaking to his mother for the last time, J., his wife, and their newborn child moved to the United States, where Defense stationed him at the Test and Evaluation Squadron to train on F-35 fighter jets, better known as Joint Strike Fighters. In December 2018, J. received a message from his sister-in-law A. M. via the Chinese messaging service WeChat that his mother was arrested and taken to a re-education camp.

J. immediately informed his superiors at the Edward Air Force Base in California about what happened, hoping that the Dutch government could somehow help him get his mother released. His superiors told him to contact the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in The Hague. Foreign Affairs said that there wasn’t much they could do.

Early in 2019, two MIVD employees showed up at J.'s home in the U.S. “Instead of getting help from Foreign Affairs, they launched an investigation into me,” he said. The two officers, dressed in civilian clothes, start firing one question after another at J. He experienced the conversation as a “hard military interrogation,” he told FTM.

A few months later, in the summer of 2019, J.'s superior at the Edward Air Force Base told him to delete his social media accounts. He could continue to work at the base pending the MIVD investigation, but probably not with an F-35 squadron.

J. and his family returned to the Netherlands at the end of 2019, after his placement in the States ended. After a few months of sitting at home, Defense placed him to work as an information manager at the Air Force headquarters in Breda in June 2020.

In February 2021, the Ministry informed him that they intended to withdraw his declaration of no objection because they could not rule out “wanted or unwanted influence” by China now that his mother and sister-in-law are in concentration camps. “The circumstances of your relatives pose a risk to both you and the Defense Organization. After all, China could use your relatives as a means of pressure and try to force you to provide services for that country,” then-Defense Minister Ank Bijleveld said.

J. fought the assessment. He reported that he had completely withdrawn from social media so that the Chinese authorities couldn’t track him down easily. And China has been oppressing the Uyghurs since 2017, but it wasn’t a problem for Defense then. He asked if he could work in another position at Defense.

In July 2021, the Ministry withdrew his declaration of no objection but said that he could possibly work in a position outside “China’s area of interest.” A short time later, the commander of J.’s unit instructed him to hand in his access passes for the base in Breda.

“I was really shocked. Instead of the Dutch State helping me to get my family released, I got sent away,” J. said to FTM. He can see no reason for it other than his ethnicity, as he had never received a bad assessment before this one. Defense still hasn’t found a new position for him.

In November 2022, J. finally got news from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about his mother and sister-in-law. In December 2018, when J. was still in the U.S., China sentenced his mother to 15 years in prison for “supporting terrorist activities and inciting ethnic hatred and discrimination.” His sister-in-law also got 15 years in prison for “illegally” providing information to foreign armed forces.

Foreign Affairs couldn’t find out where J.'s relatives were imprisoned. “It is terribly bad news, and unfortunately, there is not much that the Dutch government can do in their case,” an official told him.

J. managed to get more information through a journalist from Radio Free Asia. The reporter told him that his mother was convicted because she attended his wedding in the Netherlands in 2014. His sister-in-law was convicted for sending him the message informing him about his mother’s arrest.