Democratic Alliance candidate Inty Elham shaken by terrifying incident at Marden polling station

A young Uyghur-Australian woman running for parliament has described a terrifying incident that has left her afraid to campaign alone.

A young Uyghur-Australian woman who is running for the key seat of Sturt has described feeling intimidated and afraid to campaign alone after she was filmed by two Chinese men at a polling station.

Inty Elham, a candidate for Democratic Alliance which has a strong “stand up to China” stance, said the two men filmed her at close range at a pre-polling station in Marden after a long day of campaigning last week.

The incident was witnessed by independent senator Rex Patrick, who then safely ushered Ms Elham to her car.

“I was giving out flyers and talking to potential voters … and I just happened to turn my head and I saw these two men with both of their phones up completely directed at me,” Ms Elham said.

“As soon as they saw that I was looking at them, they quickly put their phones down and ran off.”

Ms Elham says the incident left her rattled. Picture: Russell Millard

Ms Elham, 27, said she was used to Chinese Communist Party representatives spying on the Uyghur community during peaceful protests, but the incident at the pre-poll booth was both “intimidating and scary”.

“This was a lot more intense, because they were only 2.5m from me,” she said.

“It was actually very scary, I was so shocked I couldn’t even respond.”

A 2019 Human Rights Watch report found the Chinese government’s oppression of Uyghur Muslims had reached “unprecedented levels”, with as many as a million people arbitrarily detained in up to 400 “political education” camps and prisons.

Senator Patrick said the incident gave him a “first-hand experience of what Uyghurs have been telling me for some time”.

“Ms Inty was disturbed enough to feel concerned about her safety and I escorted her back to her vehicle when she wanted to leave,” he said.

Ms Elham said she believed China saw her as a “threat”, because she was a Uyghur-Australian running for parliament.

Democratic Alliance candidate Inty Elham said she was filmed by two men while campaigning at Marden. Picture: Russell Millard

“From now on, I am always going to have people around me for security reasons,” she said.

“They should not get away with it, we live in a free democratic country and for them to just take videos and photos of me so close and get away with it is unacceptable.”

Ms Elham, a 27-year-old chiropractor, said her policies hinge on fighting corruption and “protecting our democracy from Chinese government infiltration”.

She is also campaigning on climate change action, getting dental into Medicare and taking a strong stance on national security.

The Advertiser contacted the Chinese Consulate in Adelaide to respond to the incident.

[e-mail]