Read RFA coverage of this story in Uyghur.
More than two dozen Uyghur teachers at a college in Xinjiang were arrested by Chinese authorities in 2017 and are currently still serving jail sentences, Radio Free Asia was able to confirm with officials at the school.
Their arrests eight years ago occurred at a time when authorities in the northwestern region began rounding up Uyghur intellectuals, educators, businesspeople and cultural figures en masse and incarcerating them in re-education camps to prevent what China said was terrorism and religious extremism.
Last week, RFA Uyghur reported that prominent historian Ghojaniyaz Yollugh Tekin, 59, who taught the Aksu Education Institute in the city of Aksu, had been arrested in 2017 and sentenced to 17 years in prison in late 2018 for his research, writings and views that Uyghurs are part of the Turkic world — and not Chinese.
Upon further investigation, RFA learned that authorities also arrested and detained 25 other educators from the same school in 2017. But RFA could not determine the reasons for their arrests or the lengths of their sentences.
Established in 1985, the college currently has about 220 staff members — more than half of whom are Uyghurs — and 3,000 students.
During the early 2000s, there were 100-150 Uyghur teachers, according to Uyghur activist Tuyghun Abduweli, who hails from Aksu but now lives in Canada.
A person who works at the institute but who requested anonymity for safety reasons, said more than 20 teachers from the school were taken away in several groups in 2017.
Their cases were filed by Aksu prefecture security agents, and the institute’s political affairs department and police station collaborated with them during the arrests and interrogations, the person said.
Held in a Bingtuan prison
A police officer who works at the institute told RFA that 26 teachers — mostly men — were arrested and are serving jail sentences.
He said he was involved in the cases of three of the teachers arrested — Mutellip Mamut, Eli Qasim and Eziz Memet, the last of whom was about 47 years old at the time.
Another police officer named two other imprisoned teachers — Abdusalam Eziz and Abdurahman Rozi — and said he assisted in their arrests as well as the arrest of Mutellip Mamut.
Those arrested were initially taken to Aksu Prison, but were later transferred to a detention center run by the Bingtuan at its headquarters in Shihezi in northern Xinjiang, the police officer said.
The Bingtuan is a state-run economic and paramilitary organization of mostly Han Chinese who develop land, secure borders and maintain stability in Xinjiang.
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“Mutellip Mamut is currently at the Shihezi prison,” the police officer told RFA.
Authorities held secret trials for the teachers, and institute leaders and staffers who collaborated on the cases were not allowed to attend, he added.
Interrogated because of religious practices
According to a person familiar with the situation in Aksu, a literature teacher named Abdusalam had been interrogated by authorities many times because of his religious practices and was eventually suspended from work.
“His wife wore a hijab, and he himself prayed every Friday at home,” the person said. “He was frequently called out by the school because of this, and his wife was also suspended from her job.” Abdusalam was among those detained and jailed in 2017.
A security officer from the school’s legal department confirmed the arrests and detentions of the teachers, but said he could not disclose their identities because of confidentiality requirements.
About 10% of the institute’s teachers had been arrested, said another staffer.
“They’re all in prison now,” said Tuyghun Abduweli.
Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.