This article was originally published by Radio Free Asia and is reprinted with permission.
A Uyghur man named Jappar Ablimit was sentenced to seven years in prison in China’s far western Xinjiang region for possessing ‘illegal’ books, a police officer and a Uyghur living in Turkey told Radio Free Asia.
Ablimit, a resident of Yopurga county in Kashgar, in western Xinjiang, was detained in 2017 during a massive crackdown on Uyghurs by Chinese authorities, said the Uyghur in Turkey, who had heard the news from other Uyghurs. It wasn’t clear when he was sentenced.
In 2014, Chinese authorities ordered Xinjiang’s 12 million mostly Muslim Uyghurs to turn over all books and audio-visual materials deemed “illegal” — mostly religious texts, including the Quran, Islam’s holy book, as well as items like prayer rugs, in the name of stamping out religious extremism.
However, some people did not surrender all such books, or simply forgot where they had put them, the Uyghur in Turkey said.
In 2017, when China conducted the mass detentions on Uyghurs, a few ‘illegal’ books that survived were found when the authorities were searching residents’ houses, he said.
Ablimit appears to have been caught up in that dragnet.
A police officer in Yopurga county contacted by RFA confirmed Ablimit’s arrest and sentence for defying the call to turn over “illegal” books.
The book confiscation is but one of many ways that China has oppressed the Uyghurs.
Since 2017, Chinese authorities have rounded up an estimated 1.8 million Uyghurs in concentration camps, where many have been subjected to forced labor.
Concentration camp survivor Zumrat Dawut, who now lives in the United States, said that when the 2017 crackdown began, some residents threw their ‘illegal’ books in garbage cans or cesspools in her community.
Because of this, the canal in her community in Urumqi was blocked. When it was repaired, a large number of books, including Qurans, were found in the blocked channels, she said.
