A 96-year-old Uyghur religious leader who was arrested in 2017 has died in prison, and authorities did not turn his body over to his family, his granddaughter told Radio Free Asia.
A Beijing court on Monday handed down a suspended death sentence to Yang Hengjun, a Chinese-Australian author detained on suspicion of espionage for more than five years without trial, according to media reports.
Chinese authorities have forbidden the admission of new monks of all ages into a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Chamdo prefecture in eastern Tibet amid growing restrictions on religious activities in the country, two sources familiar with the development told Radio Free Asia.
Nanjing dissident journalist Sun Lin, who used the pen name Jie Mu, has died following a raid by state security police on his home last week, Radio Free Asia has learned.
China has sentenced four Tibetans from Sertar county in Sichuan province to two years in prison each for engaging in religious activities — the second time they have been arrested and given jail time, said two Tibetans with knowledge of the situation.
A young Uyghur businessman who was reportedly arrested in 2016 on vague separatist charges has been serving a 15-year prison sentence since 2017 for illegal religious activities, a police officer in China’s northwestern Xinjiang province confirmed to Radio Free Asia.
For years, the young Uyghur entrepreneur was held up in Chinese media as a role model for other Uyghur youth – a clean-shaven, smartly-dressed young man who returned to China to start his educational consulting business after getting an MBA in the United States.
A Uyghur design director who has worked for a Chinese locomotive manufacturer in Turkey for more than a decade was arrested by Chinese authorities in March when he returned to Xinjiang for a family visit, company employees said.
A prominent U.S.-based Uyghur activist said he learned this week that his father died seven months ago in China’s far-western Xinjiang region, though the circumstances of his death remain unclear.
A Tibetan writer who wrote a book that criticized Chinese rule in Tibet has been released from prison after serving a four-year sentence for “creating disorder among the public,” a Tibetan source told Radio Free Asia.