Press Release – For immediate release
5 December 2018
Contact: World Uyghur Congress www.uyghurcongress.org
0049 (0) 89 5432 1999 or [email protected]

The WUC is deeply saddened by the news of Kerem Abduweli’s death reported this week in Chinese custody. He reportedly died last year, but news of his death did not emerge until this week. Mr. Abduweli was a prominent Uyghur religious scholar and political prisoner. He was 62 years old when he died and had been held in a Chinese prison for about 28 years, having been detained since 1990. His death was reportedly confirmed by this brother who lives in Sweden.

He was arrested by Chinese police for exercising his right to freedom of religion by travelling across East Turkistan preaching about the Quran and Islam. For preaching about religion, he was falsely charged with “organizing a counter-revolutionary group” and “carrying out counter-revolutionary propaganda and “inciting the overthrow of political power” by Chinese authorities and initially sentenced to 12 years in prison.

However, when Mr. Abduweli had served his sentence and was due to be released in November 2002, his family was informed by prison guards that his sentence was extended by 3 years. His sentence was periodically extended every few years until the present day, turning a 12 year sentence to what was essentially life imprisonment.

While the exact circumstances of his death are unknown, Mr. Abduweli’s health had been deteriorating since in recent years as he engaged in a hunger strike against his poor treatment and arbitrary detention. Amnesty International had reportedin 2014 that Kerem Abduweli was critically ill and required immediate and adequate medical care.

Mr. Abduweli spent over 28 years of his life and ultimately died in a Chinese prison simply for peacefully exercising his religious rights and for learning and preaching about Islam. Uyghurs have been subjected to unparalleled religious persecution by the Chinese government. Repressive laws and regulations have effectively made it impossible for the Uyghur people to practice their religion and most mosques now remain empty. Even the most basic expressions of religious sentiment, such as growing a beard, wearing and Islamic veil, owning a Quran or naming Uyghur children names with religious significance have been banned by the Chinese government. Those with religious beliefs are one of the primary groups targeted for arbitrary detention in internment camps, in which over 1 million Uyghurs are currently arbitrarily detained. In the camps they are subjected to indoctrination in which they are forced to disavow their religious beliefs.

There has also been a disturbing trend of deaths in custody of Uyghur scholars in particular in the past year. In addition to Kerem Abduweli, notable Uyghur religious scholars Muhammad Salih Hajimand Abdulnehed Mehsumalso passed away last year under mysterious circumstances in internment camps. Over 35 deaths in the camps have been confirmed (although the number is likely much higher) and over 200 Uyghur scholars and academics have been detained in the camps or otherwise punished in the past two years.

With no accountability or access to justice and with serious human rights violations becoming the norm in Chinese prisons and camps, a prison sentence in China is starting to become a death sentence.

The WUC remains very concerned for the hundreds of Uyghur political prisoners currently serving lengthily prison sentences and the estimated 1 million Uyghurs being held in ‘re-education’ camps across East Turkestan. The massive number of Uyghurs detained, the routine abuse and human rights violations and the increasing number of deaths indicate a crime against humanity is being orchestrated by the Chinese government.

The international community has a responsibility to speak up and hold China accountable for the arbitrary detention and deaths of Uyghur scholars and those who are merely trying to exercise their right to freedom of religion. We are grateful for recent efforts, especially from the academic community and the Universite Libre de Bruxelles, to highlight this issue, but the situation continues to deteriorate as more and more deaths and detentions are reported.

The world must not stand by while a generation of Uyghur intellectuals, scholars and religious thinkers is disappearing before our eyes.