China: Legal Ordeals for Brothers of a Journalist
The New York Times, 27 August 2015
By Michael Forsythe – A court in China’s western region of Xinjiang tried two brothers of an American reporter on charges of endangering state security and leaking secrets, according to a spokesman for Radio Free Asia, the journalist’s employer. No verdict has yet been announced in the trials of Shawket Hoshur on Tuesday and his younger brother Rexim Hoshur, which took place on Aug. 19, Rohit Mahajan, a spokesman for the United States government-funded R.F.A., said in an interview.
Their brother, Shohret Hoshur, is a United States citizen whose reports on the Chinese government’s crackdown on Xinjiang’s Uighur ethnic group have been criticized by Beijing. The plight of Shohret Hoshur’s brothers — a third brother, Tudaxun, was convicted of endangering state security last year and sentenced to five years in prison — has become an issue between the two countries before President Xi Jinping’s summit meeting with President Obama in Washington next month.