‘I Still Don’t Know Anything About...

Gheni recently spoke with RFA’s Uyghur Service about his more than two-year campaign to locate his family members in the XUAR—which he and many other Uyghurs refer to as East Turkestan—how the Dutch government has assisted him, and his meeting with Ambassador Hoekstra, which he described as inspirational. RFA also spoke with Hoekstra, a former U.S. Representative for Michigan, who discussed U.S. support for the Uyghur diaspora in the Netherlands, thought to number 1,500, and for Uyghurs in their homeland

‘You Would Want Somebody to Speak...

In a recent interview with RFA’s Uyghur Service, Hassan discussed the viewer feedback she has received about her video and why she has chosen to speak out about the Uyghurs. She said that regardless of the pushback she receives on platforms like TikTok, she will continue to highlight rights abuses in the XUAR via social media.

Barricades ‘on Every Corner’ in Xinjiang’s...

The XUAR Health Commission announced 17 new cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, in the XUAR on Monday, bringing the total number to at least 47 since infections were first reported in the region on July 15—months since the last positive test

Xinjiang Capital Urumqi on Lockdown Amidst...

According to official figures, the city of 3.5 million has recorded only six symptomatic cases of COVID-19—the disease caused by the coronavirus—and 11 asymptomatic cases, but official media reports said nearly 90 percent of flights into and out of the Urumqi Diwopu International Airport were cancelled and public transportation was shut down Friday as part of strict measures to contain the spread of the virus

‘It’s Been Years, But There’s Been...

Hesen believes that his wife, Nurimangul, was imprisoned in Kargilik in 2017, but is unsure of the fates of their teenaged daughter and twin boys. Hesen’s eldest sister, Patemhan Hesen, and her daughter are both thought to have been sent to the same prison that year as well

Threat of Lawsuit Shows China ‘Losing...

Adrian Zenz, a senior fellow in China Studies at the Washington-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, has emerged as a leading expert on the mass incarceration of Uyghurs in internment camps in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR)

Prominent Uyghur Journalist Confirmed Detained After...

Qurban Mamut, the former editor-in-chief of the official Xinjiang Cultural Journal, went missing around November 2017, several months after he and his wife visited their son Bahram Qurban at his home in the U.S. state of Virginia—the first time the three had seen each other in more than nine years.

Kashgar’s Old City Destruction Emblematic of...

In its new report, entitled “Kashgar Coerced: Forced Reconstruction, Exploitation, and Surveillance in the Cradle of Uyghur Culture,” the Washington-based Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) outlines what it calls the Chinese government’s “campaign to stamp out tangible aspects of Uyghur culture,” using the ancient Silk Road trading center as a model.

The Beauty and the Sorrow That...

Abu is a young man from Taiwan. In 2019, he rode on his bicycle to Xinjiang, traveled around the province for almost two months, and shared on social media what he saw and heard. In a video taken in Kashgar’s Old Town in southern Xinjiang, he shared details of his conversations with locals about what really happens in Xinjiang’s re-education camps, and this sparked further discussions online. Below is RFA reporter Jane Tang’s interview with Abu:

RFA: The videos you took in Xinjiang have generated a lot of response online. Now that you are back in Taiwan, can you tell us prompted you to visit Xinjiang?

Abu: I had just left my job in China, and had thought about riding my bicycle from the coastal province of Guangdong all the way to Europe. I particularly wanted to visit Xinjiang. In China, public opinion about China’s Xinjiang policy is polarized. I was hoping that I could learn more about the issue with my own eyes and ears, rather than from hearsay or the news

‘Losing Him Has Been an Attack...

The 2017 detention marked Mahsum’s fifth, and his Istanbul-based relatives recently published a verdict issued on April 12, 2004 by the Hotan Prefectural Intermediate People’s Court stemming from his fourth arrest in January that year, sentencing him to five years in prison for “publishing illegal religious teaching materials” and “storing Arabic books at home for the sake of inciting his family.”