But senior officials finally decided not to repatriate them, citing China's past treatment of the Uighur minority.
China is fighting an increasingly protracted struggle against members of its Uighur minority, who are a Turkic people with their own language and distinct Islamic culture.
Meanwhile 1985 ended with unrest among students from the Uighur ethnic minority.
There is an ethnic separatist movement among the Uighur minority, who are a Turkic people with their own language.
Among those that remain are 22 Chinese Muslim separatists from the Uighur ethnic minority.
It is a home of the Uighur ethnic minority, which is Muslim and speaks a Turkic-based language.
Such should also be our response in this case, when the might of an authoritarian state has been unleashed against the Uighur minority.
There is also the serious case of the Uighur minorities, where the Chinese Government is implementing birth control policies that are phasing the group out.
I recall the debate we had a few weeks ago, when we rightly condemned the attacks and the oppression experienced by the Uighur Muslim minority in China.
Sons of retired government bureaucrats, both said they came to Kabul in 1999 with two others of the Uighur minority to study to become Islamic preachers.