Tahir Imin, a 42-year-old U.S.-based Uyghur activist and former political prisoner from China, tells VOA that he recently learned that six of his former business associates in Xinjiang were convicted of allegedly trying to share the country.
“I have learned from two sources that the sentences, handed down in early 2024 by the Urumqi Intermediate People’s Court, were related to their association with me,” Imin told VOA. One got 15 years, while the others got 12.
Information in Xinjiang is tightly controlled, making it extremely difficult to obtain details about court proceedings. Imin – the founder of Washington Uyghur Times and a member of the Washington-based Uyghur Human Rights Project — said his sources were unable to share documents for fear of reprisals from the Chinese government. Among the accused, he added, was the nephew of a senior party official in Xinjiang.
The Urumqi Intermediate People’s Court is in the capital of Xinjiang, which is home to nearly 12 million Muslim-majority Uyghurs. The US and other countries have accused China of genocide in Xinjiang, where more than 1 million Uighurs are believed to be held in facilities Beijing describes as vocational training centers.
China says the measures are necessary to fight extremism, terrorism and separatism. Some people have been arrested for practicing their religion or for their contacts with individuals overseas who are speaking out about China’s policies in Xinjiang.
When reached for comment on the case, Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told VOA that he had not heard of the cases mentioned by Imin.
“China is a law-based country, where laws must be respected and those who break the law must be held accountable,” Liu said in an email to VOA. “If the sentence is related to charges of ‘attempting to divide the country’, please refer to Article 103 of the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China.”
Article 103 of the Chinese Penal Law states that people who “organize, conspire or carry out a scheme to subvert the state or undermine national unity” face life imprisonment or at least 10 years.
Sentences of 12 to 15 years for Imini’s former associates suggest that they may have been charged under this article.
Not the first time
Imin believes the news about his former associates is part of China’s broader strategy of transnational repression against activists like him.
It is not the first time this has happened to him, he said.
“I have previously discovered that 28 of my family members have been sentenced to prison simply because of their relationship with me,” he said. “I am deeply concerned about my daughter who was forced to report me and my estranged wife who was forced to divorce me.”
Imin told VOA that he hasn’t heard from his wife or daughter in years and has no way of knowing if they are alive or free.
“It leaves me with a constant sense of guilt and grief,” he said.
Imin and six convicted business associates — Ismail Kerim, Elqem Ilham, Dawut Osman, Yashiq Ahmed, Nurmemet Imin and Rashidin Gheyret — founded Xinjiang Ottuz Oghul Import and Export Trading Co., Ltd. in 2014.
Imin left China in March 2017, first moving to Israel before settling in Washington. After moving to the US, he lost contact with his former co-workers and began speaking out against alleged abuses in Xinjiang. As a result, his associates cut off contact with him, leaving him unable to trace the fate of the company they once shared.
VOA was able to find details about his import-export firm on Chinese company search sites. According to Alibaba’s business-to-business website 1688, the company and its affiliates were registered with the Urumqi Municipal Administration for Market Regulation on May 14, 2014, with Tahir Im listed as the representative and chairman and the other individuals of sentenced to administrative roles.
Imin says his former co-workers all had separate businesses, with their joint company serving as a joint venture.
“We were all well educated and focused on business and social improvement,” Imin said. “The motto of our company was development, cooperation and social responsibility”.
Family ties
Ilham, one of the former business associates who was convicted, is the nephew of Kaiser Abdukerim, the current vice president of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, according to Imin.
VOA could not independently verify the connection between Ilham and Abdukerim. Despite multiple calls to a number listed on the Xinjiang government website, calls went unanswered.
Abdukerim has long been a vocal supporter of the Chinese government’s policies in Xinjiang. At the United Nations in 2018, as president of Xinjiang Medical University, he defended the government’s policies, calling them social progress, even as allegations of mass detentions and human rights abuses mounted.
In March 2023, as vice president of Xinjiang, Abdukerim claimed on CGTN that international criticism of Xinjiang was an attempt to interfere in China’s internal affairs.
Limited access
According to information collected by the Xinjiang Victims Database, which documents individuals affected by China’s policies in Xinjiang, all of Imin’s former colleagues were arrested in July 2021 on charges of problematic association. They later attended a hearing in March of 2023. Imin’s update on their sentencing is the latest on their status.
According to Gene Bunin, curator of the Xinjiang Victims Database, access to court rulings and legal documents is very limited, as the government now requires users who want to access them to use Chinese platforms such as WeChat or AliPay.
“The other reason is that, even when they are accessible, they [Chinese authorities] generally it has not posted any of the sensitive cases, which is the vast majority of criminal cases for Xinjiang,” Bunin told VOA.
He said that in a study he conducted in 2018, only 7,000 out of 70,000 criminal cases in Xinjiang had verdicts posted.
“This rate, of about 10%, was the lowest in the country, as for most provinces/regions at least 60-70% of decisions were posted,” Bunin said. “Of the 7,000 apparent, almost all were for standard crimes that would be recognized anywhere in the world (drunk driving, theft, robbery, rape, murder, etc.), with no political/religious case.”
According to a Human Rights Watch report released in 2022, based on Xinjiang government data, more than half a million people had been prosecuted since 2017.