September 30th 2023.
The U.S. Department of State has strongly condemned Beijing for secretly sentencing a Uyghur folklore expert and ethnographer, Rahile Dawut, to life in prison.
Ms. Dawut was the creator and former director of Xinjiang University's Minorities Folklore Research Center. She published articles in international journals and authored several books about Islamic sacred sites in Central Asia.
In December 2017, she mysteriously disappeared and it was later revealed that she was one of the many members of the Uyghur intellectual and cultural elite who were detained in the same year. Chinese authorities had launched a mass incarceration campaign in Xinjiang and it was in 2018 that Dawut was tried and convicted for the crime of “splittism”.
The State Department statement said that Dawut and other Uyghur intellectuals are unfairly targeted and imprisoned for their work to protect and preserve Uyghur culture and traditions. It called on Beijing to end “genocide and crimes against humanity” against Uyghurs and other minority groups, and to honor its commitments to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Western governments and rights groups have accused China of targeting intellectuals, artists, teachers and cultural figures in an effort to erase the Uyghur identity, and many have concluded in 2021 that Beijing’s treatment of Uyghurs and other minorities was genocide. China, however, has rejected these accusations.
The State Department also called for the immediate release of Professor Dawut and all other individuals who are unjustly detained. It is a call that must not be ignored, and we must stand together to ensure that the Chinese government is held accountable for all its actions.
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