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A Uyghur university student named Mehmut Memtimin who was arrested more than five years ago by police in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region is serving a 13-year prison sentence, a policeman involved in his apprehension said.  His crime: Using a virtual private network, or VPN, to bypass official internet sensors and view “illegal information,” according to a police officer linked to Xinjiang University who asked to be identified only as Abduweli.  “The reason for his arrest was that he posed a threat to national security by using a VPN,” Abdulweli said.…

A Uyghur hatmaker and his wife detained in 2017 amid mass arrests in Xinjiang of members of the mostly Muslim minority group by Chinese authorities have been confirmed as having died in prison while serving their sentences, people with knowledge of the couple’s situation said. Haji’ahun and his spouse Mehpiremhan, residents of Maralbeshi county in Kashgar prefecture, were each sentenced to 10 years in Tumshuq Prison in 2019 for “illegal” religious activities, according to the sources.  The prison housed others arbitrarily arrested during the 2017 crackdown on prominent and ordinary…

A bill introduced into the U.S. Senate on Wednesday would force businesses to disclose links to forced Uyghur labor to the Securities and Exchange Commission and provide funds for those who have escaped the Xinjiang region to counter Chinese propaganda. It follows the passage on Thursday of a bill in France’s Senate that urges the European Union to copy the U.S. ban on the import of goods linked to forced Uyghur labor, which French lawmakers say has rerouted many such goods into the European single market. Besides requiring the SEC…

The U.S. Congress should remove a loophole allowing apparel websites to sell clothes in the United States made by Uyghur slaves and create a list of foreign manufacturers known to exploit forced labor, the House Select Committee on China said in a report released Wednesday. The report also recommends that Congress pass legislation funding a public archive documenting China’s genocide of the Uyghurs and for the executive branch to pursue diplomatic efforts to help those who escape the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region find refuge. Released alongside a sister report offering…

A Uyghur motorcycle repairman detained in a Xinjiang prison since 2017 for making a religious pilgrimage abroad died in jail and his body was delivered to his family in late April, people with knowledge of the situation said. Memettursun Metniyaz, a resident of Maralbeshi county in Kashgar prefecture, was jailed in early 2017 for completing the hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, years before.  He was 55-60 years old at the time of his death in April, according to a local residential committee member who oversaw the…

Meryem Ismayil was a law student at Xinjiang University when she took her life five years ago. The 22-year-old Uyghur from Aqerik village in Xinjiang’s Shayar County was distraught over the detention of her father, a Chinese Communist party cadre and member of the village’s People’s Congress.  Chinese authorities sentenced to nine years behind bars in 2017 for “threatening national security.” Meryem and her father, Ismayil Mijit, are among the hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs listed in police records that are part of a larger cache of documents and records…

China’s President Xi Jinping rolled out the red carpet for Central Asian leaders attending the first China-Central Asia Summit, held Thursday and Friday in Xian, as Beijing seeks to expand its influence in the region through trade, investment and diplomatic engagement.  The leaders from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan are also keen to engage with China. But rights groups say the leaders have seemingly turned blind eye to China’s repression of the Uyghurs – as well as Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uzbek and Tajiks – living in the northwest Xinjiang region,…

Uyghurs seeking justice for loved ones imprisoned in China have turned to a little-known United Nations body for help. Over the past year, the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has issued three rulings on a total of eight Uyghur detainees. In every case, it has ruled against China, saying Beijing violated their human rights by imprisoning them.  “Each case is an individual story and yet more proof of China’s attempt to erase the Uyghurs as a whole,” said Tumaris Yalqun, who successfully petitioned the group for a ruling on…

Throwing cake and impersonating Chinese President Xi Jinping, activists staged protests inside and outside Volkswagen’s shareholder meeting on Wednesday over the German carmaker’s alleged use of Uyghur forced labor in Xinjiang, where it has a joint venture plant. Outside the hall, activists wore a big-headed mask of Xi and a flat paper mask of Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume, who stood arm-in-arm. The Xi figure held a metal ring attached to a chain leading to two handcuffed people representing Uyghur workers in blue laborer uniforms. Standing behind them, activists with the…

Lazy persons, drunkards, and “other persons with insufficient inner motivation” must be subjected to “repeated … thought education” to ensure they take part in state-sponsored “poverty alleviation” campaigns to pick cotton in China’s Xinjiang region, a previously unpublished internal government document ordered local cadres. If such efforts fail to produce “obvious results,” coercive measures should be taken, the July 2019 document, issued by the Poverty Alleviation Work Group in Kashgar (in Chinese, Kashi) prefecture’s Yarkand (Shache) county, advises authorities. By late 2019, authorities in Yarkand were compiling lists of the…