Nearly 40 were arrested in the sweep, including several sets of siblings, an official says.<\/p>\n
2017-04-26<\/p>\n
Dozens of ethnic Uyghurs from a small village in northwestern China\u2019s Xinjiang region, including several sets of siblings, have been swept up in a recent crackdown on \u201cillegal religious activities\u201d after they attended lectures by unsanctioned imams, according to local officials.<\/p>\n
At least 52 Uyghurs in Tomosteng township\u2019s No. 2 village, in Kashgar (in Chinese, Kashi) prefecture\u2019s Yarkand (Shache) county, have been arrested under related charges, the 140-household village\u2019s party secretary Ablet Hekim told RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service in an interview earlier this week.<\/p>\n
Of those arrests, 39 were the result of a \u201crecent\u201d sweep by local authorities, Hekim said, adding that 35 are now in jail and the remaining four\u2014all of whom are \u201cunofficial imams\u201d that the state does not recognize\u2014have been sent for \u201cpolitical reeducation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The other 13 have been serving sentences \u201csince previous sweeps during the 2000s,\u201d according to the party secretary.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis week we have handed down verdicts for 13 out of the 35 [now held in jail] and delivered the official notices to their families, door to door,\u201d Hekim said.<\/p>\n
Sentences for the 13 ranged from two-and-a-half to 10 years in prison.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 35 listened to \u2018illegal religious sermons\u2019 at least two times, because we usually only warn one-time listeners and let them go,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
According to Hekim, the sermons did not contain any sensitive references to \u201cdividing the country\u201d or anti-government rhetoric often linked to unsanctioned religious activities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were sentenced simply because they had listened to sermons by the unofficial imam Abdukerim at an unauthorized venue [outside of a government sanctioned-mosque],\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Hekim provided RFA with a list of all 35 Uyghurs held amid the crackdown, as well as their ages.<\/p>\n
Among the 35, three women\u2014Buhelish Nur, Heyrinsa Ehmet and Patima Seyittursun\u2014were punished for \u201cinviting people to attend\u201d the sermons, he said.<\/p>\n
At least five sets of siblings were jailed as part of the recent sweep, including brothers Ahmat, Tursun and Imin Zayit, as well as sister and brother Nurimangul and Memet Talip.<\/p>\n
\u201cAhmat Zayit\u2019s family has no one of working age left at home, so there is no one maintaining their fields,\u201d he Hekim said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis kids have been taken in by his nephew\u2019s family.\u201d<\/p>\n
Report of arrest<\/strong><\/p>\n RFA obtained confirmation of the 52 arrests in No. 2 village while investigating a report published last week by exile Uyghur website Hoylam.com, which claimed that a 73-year-old Uyghur woman named Helchihan Hoshur was detained after making disparaging comments about Chinese policies during a \u201cself-criticism\u201d session in Tomosteng township\u2019s neighboring No. 7 village.<\/p>\n Party secretaries from three different villages in Tomosteng township, including No. 3 village chief Qembernisa Hashim, were unable to confirm Hoshur\u2019s detention.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do not have anybody like that\u2014all the detainees in our village are males,\u201d Hashim told RFA, without providing details about the detainees there.<\/p>\n \u201cWe would have recognized her, since we conduct a lot of political educational work with her family members.\u201d<\/p>\n RFA was unable to confirm the identities of the male detainees from No. 7 village or the reason for their arrests.<\/p>\n China has vowed to crack down on what it calls religious extremism in Xinjiang, and regularly conducts \u201cstrike hard\u201d campaigns including police raids on Uyghur households, restrictions on Islamic practices, and curbs on the culture and language of the Uyghur people, including videos and other material.<\/p>\n While China blames Uyghur extremists for terrorist attacks, experts outside China say Beijing has exaggerated the threat from the Uyghurs and that repressive domestic policies are responsible for an upsurge in violence there that has left hundreds dead since 2009.<\/p>\n Reported by Shohret Hoshur for RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service. Translated by Mamatjan Juma and Alim Seytoff. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nearly 40 were arrested in the sweep, including several sets of siblings, an official says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-3657","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\/3657","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=3657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3657"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=3657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}