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.”

Boarding Preschools For Uyghur Children ‘Clearly...

In recent years, experts have presented convincing evidence that Chinese authorities are placing the children of what they call “double-detained” parents into various forms of state care in the XUAR, where authorities are believed to have held up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities accused of harboring “strong religious views” and “politically incorrect” views

‘She Might be Out, But She’s...

Authorities were never forthcoming with any details about Tashmemet’s disappearance, Taschmamat and others suspect she was targeted for having lived abroad, and particularly because Malaysia is one of 26 countries that authorities in the XUAR has identified as “sensitive” for Uyghurs to have lived in or

Emrati Princess Hend Faisal Al Qassimi...

Speaking to RFA’s Uyghur Service, Al Qassimi acknowledged that the Muslim and Arab world has been largely unaware of the situation in the XUAR citing language barriers and ongoing wars in many Muslim-majority nations, but said she hopes to help highlight the plight of the Uyghurs