A Uyghur blogger and activist is \u201cseriously ill\u201d in prison in China\u2019s troubled northwestern region of Xinjiang following his detention four months ago, according to concerned family members who have been barred by the authorities from meeting with him.The Chinese authorities have also refused to inform the family of the whereabouts of Abduweli Ayup, a 39-year-old active promoter of the Uyghur language, since he was arrested in August for allegedly illegally collecting donations to run Uyghur schools in Xinjiang.<\/p>\n
A Uyghur blogger and activist is \u201cseriously ill\u201d in prison in China\u2019s troubled northwestern region of Xinjiang following his detention four months ago, according to concerned family members who have been barred by the authorities from meeting with him.The Chinese authorities have also refused to inform the family of the whereabouts of Abduweli Ayup, a 39-year-old active promoter of the Uyghur language, since he was arrested in August for allegedly illegally collecting donations to run Uyghur schools in Xinjiang.Before his arrest, the authorities closed down a Uyghur-language kindergarten run by Ayup and his two business partners in Kashgar city and refused to allow them to open another Uyghur school in Xinjiang\u2019s capital Urumqi, relatives said.One family member who spoke to RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service on condition of anonymity said that Ayup had become \u201cseriously ill\u201d during his four months of incarceration and that attempts by relatives to meet with him had been refused by authorities.\u201cOur family has tried to send some medicine and money to [him], but the authorities will not allow him to receive anything from us,\u201d she said.\u201cAccording to our most recent information, he is very weak and his health is in seriously bad condition.\u201dThe family member would not reveal the source of the information about Ayup\u2019s health, but said that relatives were unaware whether authorities had been providing him with medical treatment.Another family member told RFA that relatives had received no official information about Ayup other than the reason for his arrest.\u201cFour months ago, [he] was detained in Kashgar by police from Urumqi, but the only information our family has received from the police was that Ayup and his colleagues had \u2018illegally collected donations\u2019,\u201d he said, also speaking on condition of anonymity.\u201cIn order to find out about [his] situation, our family members went to various governmental organs including police stations and Public Security Bureaus in both Kashgar and Urumqi, but our requests were totally refused. Even now, we still do not know where he is held.\u201dThe family member said that an uncle had been caring for Ayup\u2019s family, including his wife and young daughter, since his arrest and that Ayup\u2019s 70-year-old mother had been \u201cheartbroken by the news\u201d of his detention.While little is known of Ayup\u2019s current condition or where he is being held, the Uyghur Online website\u2014which discusses Uyghur social issues and carries news from Xinjiang\u2014reported last week that he and his colleagues would be tried in January.\u201cThe case of the three people [Ayup, Dilyar Obul and Muhemmet Sidik] has already entered the prosecution stage with the [local] Procuratorate,\u201d the report said.\u201cThey have been accused of illegally collecting donations and will be tried in January next year.\u201dUyghur language activistAyup obtained his bachelor\u2019s degree at the Central University for Nationalities in Beijing in the late 1990s and a master\u2019s degree at Xinjiang University in the early 2000s before working as a lecturer at the Northwest University for Nationalities in the Gansu provincial capital Lanzhou.From December 2005 to June 2006, he was a visiting scholar at Ankara University in Turkey and was later awarded a scholarship from the Ford Foundation for a two-year advanced study program in linguistics, which he attended at the University of Kansas from 2009-2011.An active promoter of the Uyghur language, despite Beijing\u2019s policy enforcing the use of the Mandarin Chinese language in Xinjiang schools, Ayup and his associates established the Uyghur-language kindergarten in Kashgar during the summer of 2012.Authorities said the decision to close down the school in March 2013 was based on \u201cincomplete documentation.\u201dRelatives said that Ayup and his partners made repeated attempts between September 2012 and August 2013 to open a school in Urumqi but they were refused permission to operate the Nurkhan Mother Tongue School from various governmental departments at both the municipal and regional levels.In the meantime, Ayup and his colleagues published articles on various Uyghur websites soliciting public opinion on their school plans. According to information provided by the websites, some 500,000 visitors read their articles.Beginning in 2013, Ayup\u2019s relatives said that he and his colleagues had received numerous threats from authorities in Kashgar and Urumqi and were invited to \u201cdrink tea\u201d\u2014a common euphemism for what is effectively an interrogation session\u2014by the police several times.But they said that the three men refused to abandon their dream of opening the Uyghur-language kindergarten, which they asserted was their right under China\u2019s education laws.Ayup, Dilyar Obul and Muhemmet Sidik were detained by authorities on Aug. 20, 2013.Decision to return Anwar Memet, a childhood friend and middle school classmate who now lives in the U.S., told RFA that Ayup\u2019s supervisor at the University of Kansas had offered him a three-year scholarship if he agreed to pursue his doctorate in linguistics following the completion of his graduate degree.\u201c[B]ut he chose to return to his homeland to realize his dream … of opening the Uyghur-language kindergarten and school.\u201dHe said that he and other friends had tried to persuade Ayub\u2014whose wife and daughter were also with him in the U.S. at the time\u2014to stay to pursue his studies, but he could not be swayed.\u201cWe warned him, \u2018As a high-level Uyghur intellectual, your plan to open a Uyghur-language kindergarten may be interrupted by the Chinese authorities. If you attempt to realize your plan under the pressure of the Chinese police, you may face arrest\u2019,\u201d he said.\u201cIn the end, he decided to return to China in 2011. When I heard he was detained four months ago, my heart was broken. He sacrificed himself for his unfinished dream.\u201dAyup\u2019s family members told RFA that \u201c[he] never regretted his decision to return to his homeland.\u201dReported by Eset Sulaiman for RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service. Translated by Eset Sulaiman. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Uyghur blogger and activist is \u201cseriously ill\u201d in prison in China\u2019s troubled northwestern region of Xinjiang following his detention four months ago, according to concerned family members who have been barred by the authorities from meeting with him.The Chinese authorities have also refused to inform the family of the whereabouts of Abduweli Ayup, a 39-year-old active promoter of the Uyghur language, since he was arrested in August for allegedly illegally collecting donations to run Uyghur schools in Xinjiang.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":204,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[94,18,27,66,31],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-arbitrary-detention","tag-chinese-government","tag-east-turkestan","tag-freedom-of-speech","tag-uyghur"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}