His website had carried ‘politically sensitive’ stories about Uyghur history and culture.<\/p>\n
2015-09-14<\/span><\/p>\n Jailed Uyghur journalist and blogger Niyaz Kahar, who disappeared into Chinese custody six years ago following ethnic riots in northwestern China\u2019s Xinjiang region, is in failing health in prison where he is serving a 13-year term on political charges, sources said.<\/span> His website had carried ‘politically sensitive’ stories about Uyghur history and culture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2051,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-2052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2052","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2052"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=2052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Kahar, who ran the popular Uyghur-language website Golden Tarim, was detained on or around July 26, 2009, just three weeks after riots tore across the regional capital Urumqi on July 5, leaving at least 200 dead according to official figures.<\/span>
Though Kahar\u2019s family at first feared he had been killed in the riots, they later learned he had been taken into custody, and were told a year later he had been handed a 13-year sentence in a closed-court session on charges of promoting Uyghur separation from Beijing\u2019s rule.<\/span>
Kahar, who is approximately 40, is now in failing health in prison, his mother Mariamkhan told RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service last week.<\/span>
\u201cWhen I met my son in prison two weeks ago, I saw how thin and weak he has become,\u201d Mariamkhan said, adding that she had been able to speak to her son for only 15 minutes over a telephone and separated by a glass window.<\/span>
\u201cThe guards were watching us closely, so we could exchange only a few words such as \u2018hello,\u2019 \u2018how are you?\u2019 and \u2018how are you feeling?\u2019\u201d<\/span>
Though Kahar tried to appear well, and denied that he was sick, \u201cI could feel in my heart that his body is growing weak,\u201d Mariamkhan said.<\/span>
\u201cHe looked like a small, frightened child yearning for his mother\u2019s love and protection,\u201d she said. <\/span>
\u201cHe is losing his courage year by year.\u201d<\/span>
Restricted visits<\/b>
Kahar is now being held at Shikho (in Chinese, Wusu) prison in northern Xinjiang\u2019s Ili (Yili) Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, where he works as a tailor, Mariamkhan said.<\/span>
\u201cShikho is a big prison with two sections,\u201d she said. \u201cOne is the political prisoners\u2019 section, and the other is the section for ordinary prisoners.\u201d<\/span>
\u201cBecause we are the family of a political prisoner, the prison authorities let us see my son only once every four months, but the time we are given is so short, only 15 minutes. Also, we are separated by a window, and can speak only by telephone.\u201d<\/span>
And though ordinary prisoners are permitted gifts of food, clothing, and money from their families, political prisoners are not allowed to receive such things, she said.<\/span>
Following Kahar\u2019s sentencing, Kahar\u2019s father\u2014who was already suffering from high blood pressure\u2014collapsed, became paralyzed, and later died, Mariamkhan said.<\/span>
\u201cNow, when I see my son in prison, he asks me about his father, and to spare him disappointment I tell him that his father is still well,\u201d she said.<\/span>
\u201cMy son has already spent six years in prison,\u201d Mariamkhan said. \u201cNow, I will wait through the next seven years.\u201d<\/span>
Politically sensitive<\/b>
Born in 1975 in Yokuri Akyer village near Kumul (Hami) City, Niyaz Kahar studied literature at Xinjiang University from 1994 to 1999. <\/span>
He then worked at a local newspaper before going on to establish the Uyghur-language website Golden Tarim, which featured articles on Uyghur history, culture, politics, and social life.<\/span>
Authorities later closed his website, along with several others, accusing them of publishing politically sensitive news stories aimed at stirring Uyghur public anger against the Chinese government.<\/span>
Speaking to RFA from the Netherlands, where he lives as a refugee, long-time friend Abdushukur Mirahmed described Kahar as \u201can excellent scholar\u201d whose website Golden Tarim was \u201cone of the most-welcomed Uyghur-language websites\u201d at the time the two men last met in Urumqi in 2006.<\/span>
\u201cLater, I heard that the Chinese authorities closed his website and arrested him.\u201d<\/span>
\u201cI believe that he was one of the victims of July 5 Incident in Urumqi in 2009,\u201d he said.<\/span>
Uyghurs in Xinjiang say they have long suffered ethnic discrimination, oppressive religious controls, and continued poverty and joblessness, blaming the problems partly on the influx of Han Chinese into the region.<\/span>
Chinese authorities blame outbreaks of violence in the region on Uyghur \u201cterrorists,\u201d but rights groups and experts say Beijing exaggerates the terrorism threat to take the heat off domestic policies that cause unrest or to justify the authorities use of force against the Uyghur minority.<\/span>
Reported by Eset Sulaiman for RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service. Translated by Eset Sulaiman. Written in English by Richard Finney.<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"