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

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

Turkey-based Businessman First Uyghur in Exile...

Ghoji Abdullahajim Hotan, 55, died at 10:00 a.m. at the VM Medical Park Maltepe Hastanesi in Istanbul, Turkey, where he had lived with his wife Mahpiret and their four children since relocating in 1992 from Hotan (in Chinese, Hetian) prefecture, in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region

Uyghur Singer Rashida Dawut Sentenced to...

Rashida Dawut, a long-time member of the Xinjiang Muqam Troupe in the XUAR capital Urumqi who produced popular solo albums in the 1990s, was sentenced to 15 years in jail for “separatism” by the Urumqi Intermediate People’s Court in late 2019, a source claiming to have close knowledge of the situation recently told RFA’s Uyghur Service

Xinjiang County Sends Uyghur Camp Detainees...

Beijing initially denied the existence of internment camps in the XUAR, but last year changed tack and began describing the facilities as “boarding schools” that provide vocational training for Uyghurs, discourage radicalization, and help protect the country from terrorism

‘The Thing I Feared Has Already...

Prior to her sentence, Rozi spent nearly two years detained in the XUAR’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 2017. The imprisonment of Rozi demonstrates how not even long-time civil servants are safe amid the campaign of mass incarceration in the region, where authorities regularly label

‘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