BEIJING: A prominent Uyghur Scholar specialising in the study of her people’s folklore and traditions has been sentenced to life in prison, according to a US-based foundation that works on human rights cases in China. Rahile Dawut was convicted on charges of endangering state security in December 2018 in a secret trial, the San Francisco-based Dui Hua Foundation said in a statement Thursday. Dawut appealed but her conviction was upheld, the foundation said.
Dawut was a professor at Xinjiang University and founder of the school’s Ethnic Minorities Folklore Research Centre. She disappeared in late 2017 amid a brutal government crackdown aimed at the Uyghurs, a Turkic, predominately Muslim ethnicity native to China’s northwest Xinjiang region. For years, her exact status was unknown, as Chinese authorities didn’t disclose her whereabouts or the nature of the charges against her.
That changed this month when the Dui Hua Foundation saw a Chinese government document disclosing that Dawut was sentenced to life in prison.
Chinese ministry of foreign affairs spokesperson Mao Ning said she had “no information” on Dawut’s case at a regular press briefing Friday.