(New York) –The Chinese authorities should immediately release the Uyghur filmmaker and director Ikram Nurmehmet, who was sentenced to six and a half years in prison after being convicted on politically motivated charges, Human Rights Watch said today.
Xinjiang’s Urumqi Intermediate People’s Court convicted Nurmehmet, 33, in January 2024 for “actively participating in terrorist activities” while he was studying in Turkey between 2010 and 2016, knowledgeable sources told Human Rights Watch. During the trial, Nurmehmet said the authorities held him in a dark room for 20 days and tortured him until he gave a false confession, which was the sole basis for his conviction along with his possession of a Turkish residency permit. Although his parents and wife attended the trial, the authorities did not inform his family about his conviction for more than half a year, on August 23.
“More than seven years after the Chinese government began its abusive ‘Strike Hard Campaign’ in Xinjiang, the authorities continue to prosecute young Uyghurs like Ikram Nurmehmet on politically motivated charges,” said Maya Wang, associate China director at Human Rights Watch. “Ikram Nurmehmet and the hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs who have been wrongfully imprisoned should be immediately freed.”
Nurmehmet is currently being held in Urumqi No. 1 Detention Center. Four other Uyghurs whose identities are unknown were also convicted in connection to Nurmehmet’s case.
China’s Criminal Procedure Law prohibits the use of evidence obtained through torture. Yet in practice, judges rarely throw out such tainted evidence and almost never acquit defendants who were tortured to confess. During political campaigns targeting particular types of crime, including the “Strike Hard Campaign against Terrorism and Extremism” in the Uyghur region since late 2016, the police, procuratorate, and the judiciary are often under immense pressure to cooperate, disregard the rules, and use torture to further prosecutions.
During the Strike Hard Campaign, the Xinjiang authorities have made foreign ties a punishable offense, targeting Uyghurs and other Turkic individuals with connections to an official list of “26 sensitive countries,” including Turkey and other Muslim majority nations. Uyghurs who have been to these countries, have family there, or otherwise communicate with people there, have been interrogated, detained, and often tried and imprisoned.
The campaign against Uyghurs with foreign ties appears to be ongoing, Human Rights Watch said. Earlier this year, a US-based Uyghur activist, Tahir Imin, 42, said that the Urumqi Intermediate People’s Court had sentenced all six of his business partners to between 12 and 15 years in prison for “separatism” because of their association with him.
“The Chinese government dismisses allegations of abuses in Xinjiang, yet Uyghurs continue to go to prison for many years after unfair trials,” Wang said. “Concerned governments should confront Chinese officials about the cases of Ikram Nurmehmet and Tahir Imin’s business associates, press for their immediate release, and call for an end to the crackdown against Uyghurs.”
