A young Uyghur businessman who was reportedly arrested in 2016 on vague separatist charges has been serving a 15-year prison sentence since 2017 for illegal religious activities, a police officer in China’s northwestern Xinjiang province confirmed to Radio Free Asia.
For years, the young Uyghur entrepreneur was held up in Chinese media as a role model for other Uyghur youth – a clean-shaven, smartly-dressed young man who returned to China to start his educational consulting business after getting an MBA in the United States.
A Uyghur design director who has worked for a Chinese locomotive manufacturer in Turkey for more than a decade was arrested by Chinese authorities in March when he returned to Xinjiang for a family visit, company employees said.
A prominent U.S.-based Uyghur activist said he learned this week that his father died seven months ago in China’s far-western Xinjiang region, though the circumstances of his death remain unclear.
A Tibetan writer who wrote a book that criticized Chinese rule in Tibet has been released from prison after serving a four-year sentence for “creating disorder among the public,” a Tibetan source told Radio Free Asia.
When she was just 13, Ngawang Sangdrol was arrested for protesting Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule in Tibet. She spent more than a decade in prison before international pressure led to her release in 2002.
Tearing down tents and destroying a colorful sand mandala, Chinese authorities on Wednesday stopped a gathering where a Tibetan Buddhist lama was scheduled to preach – and tried to block online photos and descriptions of the incident, two Tibetans with knowledge of the situation said.
Chinese authorities in Tibet have intensified monitoring of Tibetans, and continue to interrogate them in the regional capital Lhasa to prevent communication with people outside of Tibet, RFA has learned.
Rights activist Ji Xiaolong has stood trial in a Shanghai court on public order charges after he wrote to a Chinese leader criticizing the grueling COVID-19 lockdown of spring 2022, Radio Free Asia has learned.
Chinese authorities began searching homes in the Tibetan capital Lhasa this month to determine whether Tibetans are accessing foreign radio and TV programs via satellite dishes, city police and two Tibetans with knowledge of the situation said.