{"id":4012,"date":"2018-01-07T16:46:22","date_gmt":"2018-01-07T16:46:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iuhrdf.org\/en\/2018\/01\/07\/chinese-authorities-jail-four-wealthiest-uyghurs-xinjiangs-kashgar-new-purge\/"},"modified":"2018-01-07T16:46:22","modified_gmt":"2018-01-07T16:46:22","slug":"chinese-authorities-jail-four-wealthiest-uyghurs-xinjiangs-kashgar-new-purge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/chinese-authorities-jail-four-wealthiest-uyghurs-xinjiangs-kashgar-new-purge\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese Authorities Jail Four Wealthiest Uyghurs in Xinjiang\u2019s Kashgar in New Purge"},"content":{"rendered":"

RFA<\/a><\/p>\n

Authorities in northwestern China\u2019s Xinjiang region have jailed the four wealthiest ethnic Uyghurs in Kashgar (in Chinese, Kashi) city for acts of \u201creligious extremism,\u201d according to an official, amid a crackdown he said is unlikely to end any time soon.<\/span>

A source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, recently told RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service that Abdujelil Hajim, Gheni Haji, Memet Tursun Haji, and Imin Hajim\u2014all successful business owners in Kashgar\u2014were taken into custody in May 2017.<\/span>

The four men, whose last names signify that they have made the Muslim holy pilgrimage to Mecca, were later sentenced to a total of 42 years in prison, the source said.<\/span>

Chairman of the Kashgar Prefectural Trade Association Abdujelil Hajim\u2014who owns a firm that transports goods between China, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, as well as large tracts of property in Kashgar and Xinjiang\u2019s capital Urumqi\u2014was sentenced to 18 years in prison.<\/span>

Gheni Haji, the owner of the Emin Trading Plaza at Kashgar\u2019s Sunday Market; Memet Tursun Haji, owner of Eziz Diyar Plaza at the same market; and Imin Hajim, owner of the Ibnsina Dental Facility; were each sentenced to eight years in jail, according to the source.<\/span>

The source\u2019s claims were verified earlier this week by Yasinahun, the chief of security for Kashgar\u2019s Chasa township, who confirmed that the four men topped the list of the city\u2019s wealthiest Uyghurs and that they had all been arrested in May, although he was unable to say where they are being held.<\/span>

\u201cGheni Haji, Imin Hajim, and Memet Tursun Haji had displayed signs of religious extremism, so they were arrested,\u201d he told RFA in a phone interview, adding that their activities were characterized as \u201cabnormal\u201d by authorities.<\/span>

\u201cI was told that Memet Tursun Haji did not hold a funeral when his father passed away. Not holding a funeral is one of the signs of extremism. Gheni and Imin prayed only eight times at prayer service, not 20 as others usually do. That is also a sign of extremism.\u201d<\/span>

Imin Hajim, Yasinahun said, is \u201ca man of few words\u201d who normally kept to himself, but had protested police searches of his home.<\/span>

\u201cHe expressed extreme displeasure with our visits to his house related to our security work and said, \u2018I am a Chinese citizen, why do you conduct so many searches,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/span>

China regularly conducts \u201cstrike hard\u201d campaigns in Xinjiang, 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.<\/span>

While Yasinahun did not provide the specific reason for Abdujelil Hajim\u2019s arrest, he said that all four men had also undertaken \u201cunapproved, private hajj\u201d pilgrimages and been involved with imams who were not sanctioned by the state.<\/span>

Re-education camps<\/b>

Since April last year, ethnic Uyghurs accused of harboring \u201cextremist\u201d and \u201cpolitically incorrect\u201d views have been jailed or detained in political re-education camps throughout Xinjiang, where members of the ethnic group have long complained of pervasive discrimination, religious repression, and cultural suppression under Chinese rule.<\/span>

Yasinahun said he was unsure of how many people are currently being held in re-education camps in Kashgar city, but that \u201caround 2,000 people\u201d were being held from Chasa alone.<\/span>

\u201cMost people are being detained at the Yawagh Street detention facility in Kashgar city,\u201d he said.<\/span>

The security chief also said it was unclear when the campaign of political re-education in Kashgar would end.<\/span>

\u201cAt one of the meetings held in the city, one of the Chinese officials said, \u2018you can\u2019t uproot all the weeds hidden among the crops in the field one by one\u2014you need to spray chemicals to kill them all,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/span>

\u201cHe went on to say, \u2018re-educating these people is like spraying chemicals on the crops. That is why it is a general re-education, not limited to a few people.\u2019\u201d<\/span>

\u201cThe message I got from this was that the re-education will last a very long time.\u201d<\/span>

Region-wide purge<\/b>

Dolkun Isa, president of the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress exile group, told RFA that China has been \u201ctargeting all Uyghurs as potential state enemies\u201d since Xinjiang party chief Chen Quanguo was appointed to his post in August 2016.<\/span>

\u201cChen has initiated an unprecedented region-wide purge of Uyghur intellectuals, religious figures, businessmen, and any Uyghur who is not pleased with Chinese rule as \u2018two-faced\u2019 people,\u201d Isa said.<\/span>

\u201cHe has locked up tens of thousands in the political re-education camps, in much the same way that the Nazis did the Jews, soon after coming to power in Germany,\u201d he added.<\/span>

\u201cThe international community should closely monitor what the Chinese government is doing in [Xinjiang] and express concern, because the Uyghur homeland is now simply a massive concentration camp.\u201d<\/span>

While China blames some Uyghurs 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.<\/span>

Reported by Shohret Hoshur for RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service. Translated by Alim Seytoff and Mamatjan Juma. Written in English by Joshua Lipes<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RFA Authorities in northwestern China\u2019s Xinjiang region have jailed the four wealthiest ethnic Uyghurs in Kashgar (in Chinese, Kashi) city for acts of \u201creligious extremism,\u201d according to an official, amid…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4011,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-4012","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\/4012","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=4012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4012"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=4012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}