BISHKEK (TCA) — The Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) on January 29 said it has received confirmation from the relatives of Muhammad Salih Hajim of his death in custody in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The prominent scholar and Uyghur religious leader was 82 years old.
On January 24, UHRP expressed concern about reports of his detention in Urumchi, Xinjiang’s main city. The exact circumstances of his death are unknown, but he was taken into custody approximately 40 days ago, along with his daughter and other relatives. UHRP calls on the Chinese government to reveal under what conditions he was being kept, and to release his relatives if they are not being charged with any crime.
“The death of Muhammad Salih Hajim is a blow to the Uyghur community, given his respected status as a religious leader and scholar. Imprisoning an elderly man without charge demonstrates the lengths to which the Chinese authorities are going in their re-education campaign. Not even individuals who were government-approved members of the religious establishment are being spared,” said UHRP Director Omer Kanat.
Salih was born in the city of Atush in East Turkestan in 1936, and was the first scholar to translate the Quran into Uyghur in a government-approved project.
It is not known whether Salih was placed in a normal prison or one of the re-education camps where thousands of Uyghurs are being detained in harsh conditions according to individuals who have been released.
The international community should demand clarification about the circumstances of Muhammad Salih Hajim’s death and push China to release the thousands of Uyghurs detained without charge in reeducation camps, UHRP said.
The Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) is a human rights research, reporting and advocacy organization, whose mission is to promote human rights and democracy for the Uyghur people, raise awareness of abuses of Uyghurs’ human rights, and support the right of the Uyghur people to use peaceful, democratic means to determine their own political future.
Reports say that Han Chinese security forces have imprisoned tens of thousands of members of the Uighur minority in “reeducation camps” in Xinjiang, Russia’s Sputnik news agency reported.
A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report on the camps from September said that detainees were held without due process or being charged with a crime. Some detainees were held for religious offenses such as “excessive praying,” while others had accessed forbidden websites.
Beijing describes the centers as “extremism eradication” centers, meant to redirect the radical tendencies of those sent there in order to help them reintegrate into society.
The real purpose of the centers, observers say, is to brainwash Uighurs and slowly disassemble their native culture to supplant it with Beijing’s.
