Abduweli Ayup | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Occupation | Poet, linguist |
| Language | Uyghur |
Abduweli Ayup (born April 1973) is a Western educated linguist and poet who operated Uyghur language schools in Kashgar, Xinjiang, in the northwest part of China. The Uyghur Human Rights Project published his biography in Resisting Chinese Linguistic Imperialism: Abduweli Ayup and the Movement for Uyghur Mother Tongue-Based Education .
Abduweli Ayup is a linguist specializing in Uyghur language education. He is a strong proponent of linguistic human rights, specifically, the right for the intergenerational transmission of language and culture. [1] From December 2005 to June 2006, Abduweli was a visiting scholar at Ankara University, Turkey. He later received a Ford Foundation fellowship to study at the University of Kansas in the United States, and completed his master's degree in Linguistics in 2011. Upon graduation, Abduweli returned to Xinjiang and opened schools to teach the Uyghur language, his mother tongue. [2]
Abduweli was arrested in Kashgar on August 20, 2013 by economic investigation team of Tianshan District, Ürümqi City and accused of false funding and illegally raising funds for his proposed schools. Along with him, Dilyar Obul and Muhemmet Sidik Abdurshit, two of his partners involved with the school, were also detained. Abduweli suffered through illness while in prison, where he was held incommunicado for nearly nine months. [3] He was not formally charged until May 17, 2014, when he and his partners were accused of having collected "illegal donations" to support their school. [4] After a one-day trial on July 11, on August 21 the court convicted Abduweli and his associates of having "committed a crime of abusing public money." [5] According sentence in writing, aimed at opening mother language school, Abduweli and two of his partners had illegally accepted 590,000 CNY (about $95,000)in deposits from 17 people. During case processing time no one among the 17 have asked for their money back. Despite all of that Abduweli was sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined $13,000. Colleagues and human rights organizations contend that Abduweli's punishment is part of a government plan to marginalize and displace the Uyghur language. [6]
Abduwali was released on November 20, 2014, after his partners, Dilyar Obul and Muhemmet Sidik, appealed their verdict. [7] Abduweli has returned to Kashgar, and continues to teach at his friends' language training school, which his wife, Miraghul, worked in his absence.
In 2017, Erkin Ayup, brother of Abduweli Ayup, who had recently been promoted as head of oversight for the Organization Department of the Chinese Communist Party in his hometown of Tokkuzak (Tuokezhake), Kona Sheher County (Shufu), Kashgar Prefecture, Xinjiang, went missing. In an interview conducted by Radio Free Asia, a staffer at his former office said he had been sent to an internment camp near Kashgar Airport. [8]
The Linguistic Society of America [9] and the Committee of Concerned Scientists [10] appealed the President of China to investigate the circumstances under which Abduweli Ayup was detained, and petitioned for fair treatment as per China's obligations under International Law.
Supporters created a Facebook page advocating justice for Abduweli. [11]
Rebiya Kadeer is an ethnic Uyghur businesswoman and political activist. Born in Altay City, Xinjiang, Kadeer became a millionaire in the 1980s through her real estate holdings and ownership of a multinational conglomerate. Kadeer held various positions in the National People's Congress in Beijing and other political institutions before being arrested in 1999 for, according to Chinese state media, sending confidential internal reference reports to her husband, who worked in the United States as a pro-East Turkistan independence broadcaster. After she fled to the United States in 2005 on compassionate release, Kadeer assumed leadership positions in overseas Uyghur organizations such as the World Uyghur Congress.
Xinjiang is historically consisted of two main geographically, historically, and ethnically distinct regions with different historical names: Dzungaria north of the Tianshan Mountains; and the Tarim Basin south of the Tianshan Mountains, currently mainly inhabited by the Uyghurs. They were conquered by the Qing dynasty in the 18th century, and after the Dungan Revolt (1862–1877) the Qing reconquered both regions and integrated them into one province named Xinjiang in 1884.
Uqturpan County or Uchturpan County, also Wushi County, is a county in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region under the administration of Aksu Prefecture and shares an approximately 150 km (93 mi) long border with Kyrgyzstan's Issyk-Kul Region. The county is bordered to the northeast by Onsu County (Wensu), to the southeast by Aksu city, to the west by Akqi County in Kizilsu Kyrgyz Autonomous Prefecture and to the south by Kalpin County (Keping). It has an area of 9,012 square kilometres (3,480 sq mi) and as of the 2002 census a population of 180,000.
Shufu County, also transliterated from Uyghur as Konaxahar County or Konasheher County/Kona Sheher County, is a county in Kashgar Prefecture, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China. It contains an area of 3,513 km2 (1,356 sq mi). According to the 2002 census, it has a population of 360,000.
Shule County, also known as Yengisheher County or Yengixahar County, is a county of Kashgar Prefecture, in Xinjiang, China. It is located to the south of Kashgar. In ancient times, the Shule area was once the home to a Xiyu oasis civilisation, the Shule Kingdom.
Nury Ablikim Turkel is an American attorney, public official and human rights advocate based in Washington, D.C. He is a former chair of the Uyghur Human Rights Project, former chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, and former president of the Uyghur American Association.
The Ghulja, Gulja, or Yining incident, also referred to as the Ghulja Massacre, was the culmination of the Ghulja protests of 1997, a series of demonstrations in the city of Yining—known as Ghulja in Uyghur—in the Xinjiang autonomous region of China.
Ilham Tohti is a Uyghur economist serving a life sentence in China, on separatism-related charges. He is a vocal advocate for the implementation of regional autonomy laws in China, was the host of Uyghur Online, a website founded in 2006 that discusses Uyghur issues, and is known for his research on Uyghur-Han relations. Ilham was summoned from his Beijing home and detained shortly after the July 2009 Ürümqi riots by the authorities because of his criticism of the Chinese government's policies toward Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Ilham was released on August 23 after international pressure and condemnation. He was arrested again in January 2014 and imprisoned after a two-day trial. For his work in the face of adversity he was awarded the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award (2014), the Martin Ennals Award (2016), the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize (2019), and the Sakharov Prize (2019). Ilham is viewed as a moderate and believes that Xinjiang should be granted autonomy according to democratic principles.
The 2011 Kashgar attacks were a series of knife and bomb attacks in Kashgar, Xinjiang, China on July 30 and 31, 2011. On July 30, two Uyghur men hijacked a truck, killed its driver, and drove into a crowd of pedestrians. They got out of the truck and stabbed six people to death and injured 27 others. One of the attackers was killed by the crowd; the other was brought into custody. On July 31, a chain of two explosions started a fire at a downtown restaurant. A group of armed Uyghur men killed two people inside of the restaurant and four people outside, injuring 15 other people. Police shot five suspects dead, detained four, and killed two others who initially escaped arrest.
Ibrahim Muti'i was a well-known linguist from Xinjiang, China. He is best known for his research on Uyghur language and culture. He is considered to have been one of the top scholars of his generation in Uyghur.
Nurmemet Yasin was a Uighur author who lived in the People's Republic of China. He was charged for inciting separatism and imprisoned after the publication of his short story "The Wild Pigeon", and in 2013, was reported to have died in prison in 2011.
The Xinjiang conflict, also known as the East Turkistan conflict, Uyghur–Chinese conflict or Sino-East Turkistan conflict, is an ongoing ethnic geopolitical conflict in what is now China's far-northwest autonomous region of Xinjiang, also known as East Turkistan. It is centred around the Uyghurs, a Turkic ethnic group who constitute a plurality of the region's population.
On the early morning of Wednesday, 30 July 2014, Juma Tahir, the imam of China's largest mosque, the Id Kah Mosque in northwestern Kashgar, was stabbed to death by three young male Uyghur extremists. Religious leaders across denominations condemned the attack.
Zhu Hailun is a retired Chinese politician who was the current vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the People's Congress of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Previously he served as the deputy party secretary of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Between 2009 and 2016, Zhu was the party chief of Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang region.
The Xinjiang internment camps, officially called vocational education and training centers by the government of China, are internment camps operated by the government of Xinjiang and the Chinese Communist Party Provincial Standing Committee. Human Rights Watch says that they have been used to indoctrinate Uyghurs and other Muslims since 2017 as part of a "people's war on terror", a policy announced in 2014. The camps have been criticized by the governments of many countries and human rights organizations for alleged human rights abuses, including mistreatment, rape, and torture, with some of them alleging genocide. Some 40 countries around the world have called on China to respect the human rights of the Uyghur community, including countries such as Canada, Germany, Turkey and Japan. The governments of more than 35 countries have expressed support for China's government. Xinjiang internment camps have been described as "the most extreme example of China's inhumane policies against Uighurs".
Ablajan Awut Ayup is a singer, songwriter and dancer who wrote over 400 songs and was known for promoting Uyghur culture and identity as well as singing bilingual songs, in both Chinese and Uyghur. In 2017, BBC portrayed him as a model of integration for his appeal to both Han and Uyghur audiences.
The Chinese government is committing a series of ongoing human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang that is often characterized as persecution or as genocide. Beginning in 2014, the Chinese government, under the administration of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping, incarcerated more than an estimated one million Turkic Muslims without any legal process in internment camps. Operations from 2016 to 2021 were led by Xinjiang CCP Secretary Chen Quanguo. It is the largest-scale detention of ethnic and religious minorities since World War II. The Chinese government began to wind down the camps in 2019. Amnesty International states that detainees have been increasingly transferred to the formal penal system.
Sayragul Sauytbay is a Kazakh doctor, headteacher and whistleblower from China. In 2018, she fled China and then told the media about the Xinjiang internment camps resembling modern-day concentration camps where people are "re-educated" in China. She became one of the first victims of these camps in the world to speak publicly about the Chinese repressive campaign against Muslims, igniting a movement against these abuses. Sweden offered her political asylum after Kazakhstan refused, and she subsequently emigrated there.
Gulchehra "Guli" A. Hoja is a Uyghur–American journalist who has worked for Radio Free Asia since 2001. In November 2019, Hoja received the Magnitsky Human Rights Award for her reporting on the ongoing human rights crisis in Xinjiang and in 2020, Hoja received the Courage in Journalism Award from the International Women's Media Foundation and was listed among The 500 Most Influential Muslims.
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