Uyghur PEN Centre
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Ahtam Omar, a prominent Uyghur writer, sentenced to 20 years imprisonment in China
Published by Uyghur PEN on 1st May 2021 A prominent Uyghur writer Ahtam Omar, well known to the Uyghur people with his numerous stories, novels and screen writings, sentenced to 20 years imprisonment by the authorities of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China. According to the Radio Free Asia Uyghur Service report, Ahtam Omer, who had been missing since early 2017, had been detained and that his book was ripped from shelvesacross the region last year and set alight as part of a campaign to censor him.” Ahtam Omer was detained from his home on March 12, 2017, in Kashgar (in Chinese, Kashi) prefecture’s Makit (Maigaiti) county, a month after his brother Anwar Omer and nephew Iskander Omer. The source said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “The basic reason for this, the reason was given at the time, was that he had sent his older brother’s son to study in Egypt and sent money to him.” The source said, “Ahtam Omer’s literary work was stopped during the police investigation into his activities, after which he was charged with “separatism” and sentenced to prison in a secret trial in the XUAR capital. Urumqi in late 2018.”[i] Ahtam Omar was born in 1962 in Makit County. He graduated from Kashgar Pedagogical School in 1981, worked as a rural Union cadre, presenter for the Kashgar Municipal Radio Station and professional writer of the Prefectural Literary and Artistic Association; screenwriter for the Tangritagh Film Production Studio, and for the Xinjiang Song and Dance Troupe. He joined the Chinese Writers’ Association in 2008. Ahtam Omer is an outstanding Uyghur writer with his unique style. “The greetings to the homeland from distance horizon”, which published at the beginning of the 1990s, became one of the most-read novels. That novel depicted the author’s visit to […]
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Whereabouts, Well-Being of Renowned Uyghur Poet Unknown Three Years After Detention
RFA Uyghur 2021-04-28 Abduqadir Jalalidin’s children continue to advocate on his behalf and demand his release from overseas. Uyghur scholar and poet Abduqadir Jalalidin, in an undated photo.Abduqadir Jalalidin The situation and well-being of a renowned Uyghur intellectual who was detained by authorities in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region remains unknown more than three years after he was taken into custody, according to the man’s U.S.-based son. In late April 2018, RFA’s Uyghur Service learned that Abduqadir Jalalidin, a Uyghur professor at Xinjiang Normal University as well as a well-known writer and poet, had been detained three months earlier by State Security forces in the regional capital Urumqi. Jalalidin’s writings have been popular among the Uyghur people, as have his literary translations into Uyghur, including George Orwell’s iconic novel Animal Farm. He had advised a number of graduate students, training a new generation of community researchers. His son Babur told RFA that he and his Japan-based older sister Bulbulnaz have continued to advocate for their father’s release but have obtained little information about his situation since learning of his detention. “They took him from our home on the evening of Jan. 29, 2018, around 7:00 or 8:00 p.m.,” he said. “Up to now I have been unable to obtain any information about his health or what he is doing. We also don’t know why they took him away or how long he’s been sentenced to.” According to Babur, police raided their family home one day before arresting Jalalidin, confiscating Uyghur-language materials, as well as computers, tablets and phones. “And then the next day … they took my father away and never brought him back.” “My father never broke the law. All of his works were published by government publishing houses, and prior to being published they were edited by […]
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Xinjiang Authorities Sentence Prominent Uyghur Author to 20 Years in Prison
RFA Uyghur 2021-04-23 Ahtam Omer was targeted for sending his nephew to Egypt to study and sending him money there. A facility believed to be an internment camp located north of Kashgar, in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, June 2, 2019. AFP Authorities in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) have sentenced a prominent Uyghur author, whose work was targeted in a book burning campaign following his detention four years ago, to 20 years in prison, according to officials. A tipster recently told RFA’s Uyghur Service that Ahtam Omer, the author of a collection of short stories entitled Child of the Eagle and who had been missing since early 2017, had been detained and that his book was ripped from shelves across the XUAR last year and set alight as part of a campaign to censor him. According to the source, Omer was detained in 2017 in Kashgar (in Chinese, Kashi) prefecture’s Makit (Maigaiti) county, a month after his brother Anwar Omer and nephew Iskander Omer. “Ahtam Omer was detained and taken from his home on March 12, 2017,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “The basic reason for this, the reason given at the time, was that he had sent his older brother’s son to study in Egypt and sent money to him.” Egypt is one of several countries blacklisted by authorities in the XUAR for travel by Uyghurs because of a perceived risk of indoctrination with Islamic extremism. The source said Omer’s literary work was stopped during the police investigation into his activities, after which he was charged with “separatism” and sentenced to prison in a secret trial in the XUAR capital Urumqi in late 2018. In an effort to verify the claims, RFA’s Uyghur Service spoke with a representative from the office where […]
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For PEN’s Poets: reflections by Jennifer Clement, President of PEN International
PEN International Sat 20 March 2021 Today the world marks World Poetry Day, an opportunity to celebrate and promote poetry and the power and creativity of language. Each year on this day, PEN International highlights the case of poets who face great challenges across the globe simply for their work, and asks its members and supporters to take action on their behalf. When I think of the poets incarcerated in the world and punished, I think of poetry. Poetry is almost the only thing that has no monetary value. You cannot sell a poem. Nobody wants to buy a poem. Poems are not for sale in the market by the apples and peaches, or in the auction houses by sculptures and paintings. I confess that it gives me a strange wonder and shock to think that a poem is so powerful and so dangerous that a poet can be locked up and sentenced to death for rhymes and couplets, for metaphors and symbols. When contemplating how dangerous poems have become, I recall the words of British poet and novelist Thomas Hardy: ‘If Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the Inquisition might have let him alone’. In our times, if Galileo had inked his discoveries in free verse with stanza breaks, he might be looking at the sky- his round, telescope-shaped sky- from a prison cell. Mahvash Sabet, imprisoned in Iran in 2008 and freed 10 years later in 2017, penned impassioned poems to Fariba with whom she shared a cell at the beginning of her incarceration. Sabet wrote: ‘O my companion in the cage! How many cruelties we saw together; how many favours too and blessings in our isolation. […] They tied your wings to mine, feather to feather, and you rested your head beside mine every night’. The poet Li Bifeng, […]
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