Tahir Imin, 42, a Uighur activist and former Chinese political prisoner living in the United States, told VOA he recently learned that six of his former business associates from Xinjiang had been convicted of plotting to separatist the country.
“I heard from two sources that the sentences handed down by the Urumqi Intermediate People’s Court in early 2024 were related to their involvement with me,” Yimin told VOA. “One received 15 years in prison and the other two received 12 years.”
Information is tightly controlled in Xinjiang, and details of the trial are extremely hard to come by. Uyghur Times “The Chinese government has been trying to influence the Uighur people’s rights since the beginning of the Cold War,” he said.
The Urumqi Intermediate People’s Court is in the capital of Xinjiang, home to about 12 million mostly Muslim Uighurs, where the United States and other countries accuse China of committing genocide, and where more than a million Uighurs are believed to be detained in what Beijing calls vocational training centers.
China says the measures are necessary to combat extremism, terrorism and separatism. Some were detained for practising their religion or for having contact with overseas figures who have spoken out about China’s policies in Xinjiang.
Asked to comment on the incident, Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told VOA he had not heard of the incident Yimin mentioned.
“China is a country governed by the rule of law, the law must be upheld, and those who break the law must be held accountable,” Liu said in an email to VOA. “If the sentence is related to the charge of ‘attempting national secession,’ please refer to Article 103 of the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China.”
Article 103 of China’s Criminal Law states that anyone who “organizes, conspires or carries out a plot to split the country or undermine national unity” will be sentenced to life imprisonment or at least 10 years in prison.
The 12- to 15-year sentences given to Imin’s former associates suggest they could have been prosecuted under this provision.
This is not the first time
Yimin believes the news about his former colleague is part of a broader international crackdown by China on activists like him.
This isn’t the first time something like this has happened to him, he said.
“I recently learned that 28 members of my family have been sent to prison for their association with me,” he said. “I am deeply concerned for my daughter, who was forced to accuse me, and my estranged wife, who was forced to divorce me.”
Imin told VOA he had not heard from his wife or daughter for years and had no way of knowing if they were alive or free.
“It leaves me feeling guilty and sad all the time,” he said.
Imin and six of his convicted business associates – Ismail Kerim, Elkem Ilham, Davut Osman, Yashik Ahmed, Nurmemet Imin and Rashidin Gayret – founded Xinjiang Ottuz Oglu Import and Export Trading Co. Ltd in 2014.
Yiming left China in March 2017, first relocating to Israel and then settling in Washington. After moving to the United States, he lost contact with his former colleagues and began speaking out against alleged human rights violations in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. As a result, his colleagues cut off contact with him and he was unable to trace the whereabouts of the company he once worked with.
VOA was able to find details of his import-export company on a Chinese business search website. According to Alibaba’s 1688 B2B website, the company and its affiliates were registered with the Urumqi Municipal Market Supervision Bureau on May 14, 2014, with Tahir Imin listed as representative and chairman, and other convicted individuals in management positions.
Imin said his former colleagues all ran separate businesses and their joint venture functioned as a joint venture.
“We were all well educated and focused on business and social improvement,” Imin said. “Our company motto was development, cooperation and social responsibility.”
Family Ties
According to Imin, one of his former business partners who was convicted, Ilham, is the nephew of Kaiser Abdukerim, the current vice chairman of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.
VOA was not able to independently verify Ilham’s connection to Abdukerim, and multiple calls to a number listed on the Xinjiang government’s website went unanswered.
Abdukerim has long been a vocal supporter of the Chinese government’s policies in Xinjiang. In 2018, as president of Xinjiang Medical University, he defended the government’s policies at the United Nations, calling them social progress amid allegations of mass detentions and human rights abuses.
In March 2023, Abdukerim, as vice chairman of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, argued on CGTN that international criticism of Xinjiang was an attempt by China to interfere in its internal affairs.
Limited Access
According to information collected by the Xinjiang Victims Database, which records individuals affected by China’s policies in Xinjiang, all of Yi Ming’s former colleagues were arrested in July 2021 on suspicion of affiliation with questionable groups. They subsequently appeared for a hearing in March 2023. Yi Ming’s latest update on their sentences is an update on their status.
Access to court rulings and legal documents is severely restricted, and the government now requires users who want to access them to use Chinese platforms such as WeChat or AliPay, according to Jean Bunin, curator of the Xinjiang Victims Database.
“Another reason is that even if you have access, [Chinese authorities] “In general, we did not publish any sensitive cases, which make up the majority of criminal cases in Xinjiang,” Bunin told VOA.
He said a study he conducted in 2018 found that of 70,000 criminal cases in Xinjiang, only 7,000 had been convicted.
“This rate, roughly 10 percent, is by far the lowest in the country, with most states and territories announcing at least 60 to 70 percent of their sentences,” Bunin said. “Of the 7,000 visible cases, almost all were standard crimes recognized anywhere in the world (drunken driving, theft, robbery, rape, murder, etc.), and there were essentially no political or religious cases.”
More than 500,000 people have been prosecuted since 2017, according to a Human Rights Watch report published in 2022 based on Xinjiang government data.
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