Xingjiang, June 7 (Reuters).– The fathers of Ershat Alimu and Yashar Hemdulla, who 
worked at the Ethnic Languages Committee, are among the 1.5 million internees in a "re-education" camp.
←photo: Huocheng (Xingjiang) "re-education" camp
Two examples of a repression of the Muslim minority that targets intellectuals, defenders of a cultural identity that the Chinese authorities want to see disappear.
Almost two years without news. Two years of uncertainty and worry. The last time Ershat Alimu was able to exchange a few words with his father, Alimu Hashani (1), dates back to July 30, 2018. That day, via WeChat (the Chinese WhatsApp), the father tells his son, who lives and works in France, why he made the trip from Urumqi, the capital of the Uighur autonomous region of Xinjiang (west), to Beijing.
Renowned intellectual and linguist, Alimu (Yeerxiati in Chinese) Hashani came for a few days to give advice and pass on his knowledge to young recruits from the National Translation Bureau in the capital. Then, the great silence. "We ended up learning, weeks later, that he had been arrested in early August in Beijing, and transferred to a re-education camp in Urumqi," says Ershat Alimu, an IT executive in a French multinational. "Two officers came to search my parents' house and told my mother that an investigation was under way ..."
[ Full text ]