URGENT ACTION

FIRST CONTACT WITH DETAINED UYGHUR IN YEARS 
For the first time since he went missing in April 2016, Uyghur businessman Ekpar Asat was able to communicate with his family. During the short three-minute video conversation in late January 2021, he told his family members that his health was declining both physically and mentally. His family confirmed that he had lost significant weight and that he looked pale with lots of black spots on his face. Convicted without any known trial on charges of “inciting ethnic hatred and ethnic discrimination” and sentenced to 15 years in prison, there are grave concerns for Ekpar Asat’s condition and wellbeing.

TAKE ACTION: WRITE AN APPEAL IN YOUR OWN WORDS OR USE THIS MODEL LETTER

Director Wang Jiang
Prison Administration Bureau of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region
No 380, Huanghe lu, Urumqi People’s Republic of China
830000, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region 
People’s Republic of China 

Dear Director Wang:

I am writing to express my grave concern for Uyghur businessman Ekpar Asat (艾克拜尔·艾赛提), who is serving a 15-year prison sentence in a prison in Aksu Prefecture for “inciting ethnic hatred and ethnic discrimination” (民族歧视、煽动民族仇恨) without any known trial.

While it is a welcome development that Ekpar Asat was finally able to communicate with his family for the first time since 2016, I find it distressing to learn how significantly his health appears to have deteriorated. During the three-minute video conversation with his family members in late January 2021, he was seen to have lost a lot of weight and looked pale with black spots on his face. He told his family members that his health was declining both physically and mentally, and it is feared that he has been suffering from lack of sunlight exposure and malnutrition. 

Failure to provide adequate food and health care to detainees may violate the prohibition against torture and other ill-treatment and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

I therefore call on you to:
Release Chen Mei immediately and unconditionally unless there is sufficient credible and admissible 
evidence that he has committed an internationally recognized offence and is granted a fair trial in 
line with international standards;
•	Ensure that Ekpar Asat has access to adequate food, health care and prompt access to medical attention;
•	Ensure Ekpar Asat has regular, unrestricted access to a lawyer of his choice and his family and that he is not subjected to torture or other ill-treatment while in detention;
•	Release Ekpar Asat unless there is sufficient, credible and admissible evidence that he committed an internationally recognized offence and is granted a fair trial in line with international standards.

Yours sincerely,

Additional information

Ekpar Asat is a Uyghur businessman dedicated to helping older people and children with disabilities. He founded a popular social media app that featured information on a variety of current affairs and cultural topics. He went missing in April 2016, after which he was later convicted without any known trial on charges of “inciting ethnic hatred and ethnic discrimination” (煽动民族仇恨、民族歧视) and sentenced to 15 years in prison. His family only found out about the trial through communications between the Chinese authorities and a few US senators in December 2019 and January 2020. He is currently detained in a prison in Xinjiang’s Aksu prefecture.
The US embassy in Beijing encouraged Ekpar Asat to apply for the US State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) after he met with Max Baucus, then the American ambassador to China, in Xinjiang in 2014. The IVLP is a professional exchange programme in which current and emerging foreign leaders in a variety of fields experience the US first hand and build relationships with American counterparts.

The US State Department mentioned Ekpar Asat’s case in its 2019 human rights report on China. After a bipartisan group of US senators urged China to release Ekpar Asat, the Chinese embassy in Washington, DC, responded by email in January 2020 with information about Ekpar Asat’s conviction and sentencing but without providing any further details. 

Xinjiang is one of the most ethnically diverse regions in China. More than half of the region’s population of 22 million people belong to mostly Turkic and predominantly Muslim ethnic groups, including Uyghurs (around 11.3 million), Kazakhs (around 1.6 million) and other populations whose languages, cultures and ways of life vary distinctly from those of the Han who are the majority in “interior” China. 

Media reports have illustrated the extent of new draconian security measures implemented since Chen Quanguo came into power as Xinjiang’s Party Secretary in 2016. In October 2016, there were numerous reports that authorities in the region had confiscated Uyghur passports in an attempt to further curtail their freedom of movement. In March 2017, the Xinjiang government enacted the “De-extremification Regulation” that identifies and prohibits a wide range of behaviours labelled “extremist”, such as “spreading extremist thought”, denigrating or refusing to watch public radio and TV programmes, wearing burkas, having an “abnormal” beard, resisting national policies, and publishing, downloading, storing, or reading articles, publications, or audio-visual materials containing “extremist content”. The regulation also set up a “responsibility system” for government cadres for “anti-extremism” work and established annual reviews of their performance. 
It is estimated that up to a million Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other predominantly Muslim people have been held in the “transformation-through-education” centres. The Chinese authorities had denied the existence of such facilities until October 2018, when they began describing them as voluntary, free “vocational training” centres. They claim that the objective of this vocational training is to provide people with technical and vocational education to enable them to find jobs and become “useful” citizens. China’s explanation, however, contradicts reports of beatings, food deprivation and solitary confinement that have been collected from former detainees. 
China has rejected calls from the international community, including Amnesty, to allow independent experts unrestricted access to Xinjiang. Instead, China has made efforts to silence criticism by inviting delegations from different countries to visit Xinjiang for carefully orchestrated and closely monitored tours.

PREFERRED LANGUAGE TO ADDRESS TARGET: Chinese, English
You can also write in your own language.

PLEASE TAKE ACTION AS SOON AS POSSIBLE UNTIL: 12 May 2021
Please check with the Amnesty office in your country if you wish to send appeals after the deadline.

NAME AND PREFERRED PRONOUN: Ekpar Asat (he/him)

LINK TO PREVIOUS UA: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa17/2314/2020/en/ 

And copies to:

Embassy of the People's Republic of China
49-51 Portland Place W1B 1JL
020 7299 4049
Monday-Friday 09.00-12.30, 14.00-17.00
www.chinese-embassy.org.uk