Uyghur families at risk of deportation in Pakistan

About 20 Uyghur families face deportation from Pakistan if they fail to leave the South Asian country by Nov. 1 after the government ordered all illegal migrants expelled following a series suicide bombings involving Afghans, said a Uyghur philanthropist who lives there.  Pakistan has been on edge since dozens of people were killed in two suicide bombings during the last week of September.  Days later, on Oct. 3, Pakistan said it would expel all migrants without documentation, including 1.73 million Afghan refugees, who did not leave the country by Nov.…

‘Eliticide’ as China jails Uyghur intellectuals to erase culture

Over a fortnight, a Uyghur folklorist missing since 2017 was revealed to be serving a life prison for “separatism,” while another Uyghur scholar who had vanished into Chinese custody years earlier appeared on shortlists and oddsmakers picks for the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize. The cases of ethnographer Rahile Dawut, whose life conviction in December 2018 was uncovered by a U.S. NGO only last month, and economist Ilham Tohti, put away for life on similar charges in 2014, share key similarities that highlight the personal and family tragedies behind China’s relentless assimilation…

Uyghur woman takes to social media to locate detained brother

When Sahiba Sayramoghli, a Uyghur living in Turkey, learned that her younger brother had been arrested in July in the far-western Chinese region of Xinjiang on his way to a friend’s wedding, she took to social media for help. Sayramoghli, 30, who learned about his arrest from her parents in Bortala, in Xinjiang, wanted to know why police had detained him along with three friends at a checkpoint and his status. But this posed a major danger, however, in that she was putting Quddusjan Abduweli, her 23-year-old detained brother, as well…

US condemns China for Uyghur scholar’s life sentence

The U.S. Department of State condemned Beijing in a statement Friday for secretly imposing a life sentence on a Uyghur folklore expert and ethnographer who disappeared in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region nearly six years ago.  Rahile Dawut was tried and convicted in December 2018 for the crime of  “splittism,”  a U.S.-based rights group reported last week, citing a source within the Chinese government. The State Department statement said Dawut and other Uyghur intellectuals were unfairly imprisoned for their work to protect and preserve Uyghur culture and traditions.  “Professor Dawut’s life…

UN experts: Xinjiang expanding forced separation of Uyghur children

Experts from the United Nations have expressed “grave concern” over allegations that Chinese officials in Xinjiang have expanded a government-run boarding school system that forcibly separates Uyghur and other minority Muslim children from their families and communities. The experts were also concerned that the boarding schools teach almost exclusively in China’s official language of Mandarin “with little or no use of Uyghur as medium of instruction,” according to a statement released by the U.N.’s human rights office on Tuesday. “The separation of mainly Uyghur and other minority children from their…

INTERVIEW: ‘None of my mother’s work endangered state security’

Rahile Dawut, an internationally recognized expert in Uyghur folklore who disappeared in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region nearly six years ago was recently confirmed to be serving a life sentence for “endangering state security,” according to the U.S.-based human rights group Dui Hua. Prior to her disappearance in December 2017, Dawut had founded and directed a folklore research institute at Xinjiang University, and wrote dozens of journal articles and books, including studies on Islamic sacred sites in Central Asia, and presented her work at conferences around the world. Rahile Dawut was…

Police say Uyghur man has been serving 15-year sentence since 2017

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. Abduqahar Ebeydulla’s case was mentioned in a Agence France-Presse article that reported on police records obtained by researcher and Xinjiang region expert Adrian Zenz.  The records indicated that up to half of adult men in four Uyghur-majority villages in Yarkant County in Xinjiang were rounded up in 2017, when the…

US blacklists three more firms for Uyghur slave labor

The United States on Tuesday blacklisted three more companies located in China’s Xinjiang region due to their use of forced Uyghur labor, banning American companies from importing their goods. A total of 27 companies are now explicitly blacklisted under the 2021 Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which also includes a general ban on the import of any goods made even in part by the forced labor of Uyghurs, a Muslim minority subjected to internment in China. Goods made by Xinjiang Zhongtai Group, Xinjiang Tianshan Wool Textile and Xinjiang Tianmian Foundation…

Life sentence for Uyghur scholar Rahile Dawut confirmed by US group

Updated on Sept. 21, 2023, at 4:45 p.m. EDT An internationally recognized expert in Uyghur folklore and ethnographer who disappeared in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region nearly six years ago has been confirmed as serving a life sentence for endangering state security, a U.S.-based human rights group said Thursday. Rahile Dawut was tried and convicted in December 2018 for the crime of  “splittism”  by an intermediate people’s court in Xinjiang, and unsuccessfully appealed that sentence, the group said. “The most recent information confirmed that her appeal was subsequently rejected by the…

Uyghur event in NY goes ahead despite Beijing’s warning

The Chinese government is increasingly moving Uyghurs from internment camps to the regular penal system while claiming it is closing the camps, experts and foreign diplomats told a forum on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Tuesday. Chinese diplomats over the weekend tried to hamstring the event by sending out a letter to foreign missions to the United Nations warning them against attending. The panel of diplomats and human rights experts slammed Beijing’s attempted interference. “Thank you also for being here, notwithstanding the PRC’s continued…