‘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.”

Lack of Answers Makes ‘Clear’ Missing...

RFA recently received information from a source who said that Abdulla Abbas, an ethnic Tajik professor with the Institute for Life Sciences and Technology at Xinjiang University in the XUAR capital Urumqi, had died shortly after his release from a camp

‘Two-Faced’ Former Uyghur Forestry Official Sentenced...

The imprisonment of Abdulla demonstrates how not even long-time civil servants are safe amid a campaign of mass incarceration in the XUAR that has seen an estimated 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities accused of harboring “strong religious views” and “politically incorrect” ideas detained in a vast network of internment camps since April 2017

Ninety-Year-Old Uyghur Imam Confirmed Detained in...

Muhammad, who lives in exile in Boston, recently spoke with RFA’s Uyghur Service to explain how she had learned of Ayup’s detention, as well as the efforts she has since made to determine where he is and if he is still living

China Denies Jailed Former Xinjiang University...

Mass incarcerations in the XUAR, as well as other policies seen to violate the rights of Uyghurs and other Muslims, have led to increasing calls by the international community to hold Beijing accountable for its actions in the region

Brother of Uyghur Linguist Confirmed Held...

Uyghurs in exile say that the charges against Ayup and his partners were politically motivated, after the U.S.-educated linguist’s essays and lectures on maintaining the Uyghur language in schools drew widespread support in China’s Uyghur community

Prominent Uyghur Activist Dies Days After...

As a cofounder of the Students Cultural Scientist Union at Xinjiang University along with WUC President Dolkun Isa, Ababekri organized a June 1988 student protest in reaction to Chinese discrimination against Uyghurs, which also called for an end to nuclear tests in the XUAR, democratic elections, and the halt of mass migration of majority Han Chinese to the region, the WUC said in a statement on Nov. 27

Expert Says 1.8 Million Uyghurs, Muslim...

Authorities in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) have detained up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in as many as 1,300 to 1,400 internment camps, one of the world’s foremost experts on mass incarcerations in the region said in a paper released Sunday

Jailed Uyghur Scholar Ilham Tohti Awarded...

The European Parliament on Thursday awarded jailed Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti with the 2019 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought for “exceptional individuals and organisations defending human rights and fundamental freedoms,” calling on Beijing to set him free. Tohti, a former professor of economics at the Central University for Nationalities in Beijing, was sentenced to …

Continue reading “Jailed Uyghur Scholar Ilham Tohti Awarded Sakharov Prize For Dedication to Human Rights”

European Parliament Shortlists Jailed Uyghur Scholar...

Tuesday’s announcement comes one week after the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) awarded Tohti the 2019 Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize, named after the Czech playwright and politician who opposed Soviet communism, making him the first dissident from China to receive the prize