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Issue 7: Uyghurs Imprisoned for Religious Reasons – Part 1: Buzainafu Abudourexiti & Abdusemet Qarihaji

Issue 7: Uyghurs Imprisoned for Religious Reasons – Part 1: Buzainafu Abudourexiti & Abdusemet Qarihaji

World Uyghur Congress, 22 May 2018

As part of the WUC’s campaign to highlight the religious persecution of Uyghurs during Ramadan, the WUC will also draw attention to Uyghurs who have been imprisoned for their religious beliefs or for peacefully practicing their religion.

Part 1 will focus on the cases of Buzainafu Abudourexiti & Abdusemet Qarihaji.

Buzainafu Abudourexiti is a Uyghur woman who was arrested by Chinese police on 29 March 2017 and has been in detention ever since. She had studied Islam at Al Azhar University in Egypt, a university renowned for its religious studies, for two years before returning to China in 2015. In March 2017, she was taken away from her parents’ house in Urumqi  and transferred to the city of Akesu, 1,000km away. She was likely detained due to her religious studies in Egypt, as more than 200 Uyghurs, many students at Al Azhar University, were rounded up by Egyptian authorities at the request of the Chinese government in the summer of 2017.

She was reportedly sentenced on 5 June, without any legal representation, to seven years imprisonment and is currently being held at Urumqi Women’s Prison. No charges or any documentation about her case has ever been made public or provided to her family. Buzainafu Abudourexiti was pregnant at the time of her arrest, however it is believed that she is no longer is. There has been no additional information about her fate and the fate of her child.

Abdusemet Qarihaji is a respected Uyghur religious cleric and teacher from Kelpin County who was arrested on May 10th 2016 and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment by the Aksu Prefectural People’s Intermediate Court on May 25th with conducting “illegal religious activities”. He had dedicated his life to studying and teaching Islam.

The Aksu Prefectural People’s Intermediate Court specifically charged him with teaching the Koran to children 20 years ago. Other than a 70 year old cousin of Qarihaji, no other family members or legal representatives were allowed to attend the trial and sentencing. Tash Tomurweli, one of the sons of Qarihaji who currently resides in Turkey, told the WUC that his father’s health is very poor. Even before Abdusemet Qarihaji was jailed, he was blind in one eye and has now almost lost sight in the other.