This article was originally published by Radio Free Asia and is reprinted with permission.
Elijan Ismail made a name for himself as a prominent Uyghur entrepreneur in the 2000s.
He founded Xinjiang Sadaqet Bio-Technology Co., Ltd., in his hometown of Maralbexi in southern Xinjiang, and in 2008 moved it to Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi.
It was there that Ismail joined a group of young businessmen who began making charitable donations, particularly to those who needed medical treatment in city hospitals, according to Abduweli Ayup, founder Uyghur Hjelp, or Uyghuryar, a Norway-based nonprofit organization that documents Uyghurs who have been arrested and imprisoned.
But because China had forbidden the practice of zakat — a religious obligation for Muslims to donate a portion of their wealth each year to charitable causes — in Xinjiang since 2016, with few exceptions, police branded them an “ethnic separatist group,” Ayup said.
After investigating their charitable activities as well as those they helped, authorities arrested Ismail and the others.
Ismail, now 49, was picked up in Urumqi in 2017 and sentenced the following year to 18 years in prison for “inciting separatism” because the recipients of his donations included families of political prisoners, said an officer at the Maralbexi market police station in Kashgar prefecture.
Bogus charges
His case illustrates how Chinese authorities have targeted and arrested numerous Uyghur businessmen as part of a campaign to monitor, control and assimilate members of the over 11 million-strong ethnic group in Xinjiang.
Authorities have used bogus charges of separatism and terrorism as an excuse to target the Uyghurs purportedly to prevent religious extremism and terrorist activities, rights groups say.
Many Uyghur entrepreneurs were arrested during the period of mass detentions that began in 2017. Radio Free Asia has brought to light details about their sentences and jailing after probing their backgrounds.
Ismail and the other entrepreneurs “provided financial support to the poor and promoted the care of the wives and children of those who were arrested,” the police officer said.
They had collected and distributed money and in-kind goods to more than 10,000 people since 2014, he said.
“I’m not exactly sure what the issue is with distributing money,” the policeman said. “Under my division, there might be 12 families he helped who are families of political prisoners.”
More than 20 people have been arrested in connection with Ismail’s case, and none of them have been released, he added. The length of their sentences is unknown, however.
Giving to the poor
A security director in Maralbexi, called Bachu in Chinese, told RFA that Ismail had been sentenced to 18 years for leading the businessmen in “distributing illegally collected money.”
“He would drop money into the baskets of people walking on the street if he knew they were poor,” he said, adding that Ismail’s activities came to light after 2017 when investigators questioned recipients about who had given them money.
“We don’t know whether he acted under the encouragement of people in the county or under the influence of foreign forces — the law has the answer,” he said.
Ismail gained his business acumen from his father, who had been involved since the 1980s in various business ventures, including real estate, metals, textiles and medicine in the southern Xinjiang town of Maralbexi, said a source familiar with Ismail’s background.
After studying medicine in Lanzhou, capital of western China’s Gansu province, Ismail returned to Xinjiang and expanded and internationalized the businesses.
Ismail then set up his biotech company, which imported medicine from Pakistan and exported Uyghur medicine to the Central Asian republics, including Kazakhstan, where he traveled to in 2017, the source said.
Like most prosperous Muslims, Ismail the other Uyghur entrepreneurs he had befriended dutifully performed zakat, despite the ban on the practice.
“Elijan Ismail was among the first group of influential wealthy people to be arrested,” according to information in the Uygur Hjelp’s database, Abduweli Ayup said.
Blacklisted
While studying in China in the late 1990s, Ismail had been accused of ethnic separatism.
“This history, combined with his 2017 travel to Kazakhstan, led to further suspicion by authorities, right when he was placed on a blacklist,” Ayup said.
“Although initially cleared during interrogation about his foreign trip, his involvement in charity distribution, particularly in Kashgar and Urumqi, drew additional scrutiny,” he said.
As a successful entrepreneur, Ismail also gave talks at universities, but those who invited him or attended his lectures were scrutinized by authorities, said the person familiar with his background.
This June, authorities arrested seven or eight people who had downloaded videos of the talks, saved them and later watched them, the police officer in Maralbexi said.
“We are still investigating,” he added.
