Press Release – For immediate release
12 March 2019
Contact: World Uyghur Congress www.uyghurcongress.org
0049 (0) 89 5432 1999 or [email protected]

The Kazakh government should cease intimidation against peaceful activists campaigning for detained relatives in China and release Serikzhan Bilash. The Kazakh activist was arrested on March 10th, charged with “inciting ethnic discord” and given two months’ house arrest while he awaits trial.

Bilash, who was born in East Turkistan and is now a naturalized Kazakh citizen, was reportedly staying at an Almaty hotel when he was taken into custody in the early hours of March 10th and was later taken to the Department of Internal Affairs in Astana for questioning. Despite living in Almaty, he has been put under house arrest in Astana for a period of two months while prosecutors prepare for trial on suspicions of calling for a “jihad” against the Chinese at an event last month.

In recent months, Bilash has organized several gatherings of ethnic Kazakhs from Xinjiang who settled in Kazakhstan and complained that their relatives were held in so-called reeducation camps in the Chinese region. He was charged with illegally leading an unregistered organization, and ordered to pay a fine, despite efforts to register the group with the Justice Ministry on two occasions in 2018.

The organization, Atazhurt Eriktileri (Volunteers of the Fatherland), has been working since early 2017 in an effort to protect the rights of ethnic Kazakhs persecuted in China — many of whom are arbitrarily detained in political indoctrination camps in East Turkistan. The group’s headquarters in Almaty were searched the day of their leader’s arrest.

The group has held a number of public gatherings to petition their own government to take up the issue with China and to release family members who are detained. So far there have been few signs that of the government’s willingness to substantively deal with the issue.

Commenting on the case, Uyghur Congress President Dolkun Isa said that, “I’m appalled that China’s influence outside its own borders has so easily silenced a peaceful activist working with ordinary men and women whose families have been split apart.” He continued, “The Kazakh government must respect the rights of their own citizens and do their duty to call on China to release them immediately.”

Although Bilash has been transferred from jail to house arrest, the action sends a strong signal to those who have so far spoken out and has set a chill on the countless others who fear the fate of family members in the camps.

The Uyghur Congress remains concerned by intimidation and reprisals targeting actors outside the country in a bid to shut down critics and silence dissent. Chinese persecution has now extended well beyond Uyghurs in East Turkistan to all Turkic Muslims, and its our obligation to work in unison to support all those peaceful actors willing to push back against it.