Headlines- As attacks on shipping continue, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claims that an oil tanker "violating regulations" caught fire after striking a sea mine in the Strait of Hormuz.
- Two troops have died in a helicopter crash in Najran, Saudi Arabia, according to the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen, which also claims to have downed more drones close to Riyadh.
- Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps navy issues a warning that the Strait of Hormuz is "closed," citing five tankers that have been hit since Friday.
- Four drones were intercepted and destroyed over the provinces of Riyadh, Eastern, and Southern, according to the coalition led by Saudi Arabia.
- The Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen claims to have intercepted three drones in the southern and Riyadh regions, two cruise missiles over the Red Sea, and a ballistic missile headed for the Saudi city of Yanbu. In the
- Just two days before the new sanctions and tariffs on Russia mandated by the law named for the late Senator Lindsey Graham were scheduled to go into effect, President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday waiving them.
- On Saturday afternoon, a car drove through a soccer match in Wichita, Kansas, killing a child and an adult and injuring numerous others.
Tag: RFA’s Uyghur Service
Uyghur Former Volleyball Star on Crutches...
Ablet Bawudun, from Aksu (in Chinese, Akesu) prefecture’s Uchturpan (Wushi) county, was detained in early 2017 in one of the region’s vast network of internment camps, where authorities are believed to have held up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities since April of that year
Peace Prize to Victim of China...
Tohti, a former professor of economics at the Central University for Nationalities in Beijing, was sentenced to life in prison for “separatism” by the Urumqi Intermediate People’s Court in the XUAR on Sept. 23, 2014, despite having worked for more than two decades to foster dialogue and understanding between ethnic Uyghurs and Han Chinese
Ethnic Han Leading Top Xinjiang University...
On Sept. 25, Chinese state media reported that Yao Qiang, an ethnic Han man who had been serving as Vice President of Xinjiang University in the regional capital Urumqi since March 2019, had been appointed as the school’s newest president three days earlier. This marks the first time since the founding of the XUAR by China in 1955 that a Han person has served as the head of the university, which is the flagship institute of higher education in the region
‘I Wish I Could Wipe my...
Since fleeing China, Sidik says that she has been unable to contact her family in the XUAR, other than receiving a phone call from her husband in February this year to request a divorce, shortly before he disappeared
Detainees Endure Forced Labor in Xinjiang...
Detainees at an internment camp in an area of northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), where Disney shot part of its blockbuster film Mulan, are being subjected to forced labor making socks and crushing gravel, according to a local official
Three Camps in Xinjiang’s Uchturpan Believed...
Beginning in October 2018, Beijing acknowledged the existence of the camps, but described them as voluntary “vocational centers,” despite reporting by RFA’s Uyghur Service which has found that detainees are mostly held against their will in poor conditions, where they are forced to endure inhumane treatment and political indoctrination
Xinjiang Authorities Jail Family Members of...
Asat Abdukerim and his younger brother Anwar Abdukerim, of Ili Kazakh (Yili Hasake) Autonomous Prefecture’s Qorghas (Huocheng) county, were detained in 2017 for their respective travels to Turkey and the Netherlands, Asat’s Turkey-based daughter, Dilbar Asat, and his sister, Canada-based Marhaba Abdukerim, recently told RFA’s Uyghur Service.
Xinjiang Authorities Restrict Islamic ‘Nikah’ Wedding...
Historically, Uyghur couples have performed nikah on the morning of their wedding, gathering with their immediate families, as well as their best man and maid of honor, in the presence of an akhun, or Muslim officiant. Multiple wedding receptions—complete with food, dancing, and merriment, and attended by extended family and members of the couple’s social circle—typically follows during the same afternoon and evening, or over the course of subsequent days
Public Toilet Erected on Former Site...
The Mosque Rectification drive, part of a series of hardline policies under top leader Xi Jinping, predates the mass incarceration of as many as 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in a vast network of internment camps in the XUAR that began in April 2017
‘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