China Is Said to Have Freed Jailed Uighur Linguist

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/13/world/asia/china-is-said-to-have-freed-jailed-uighur-linguist.html

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BEIJING — The authorities in Xinjiang, in China’s far west, have reportedly released from prison a Uighur linguist and poet who was jailed after he sought to open schools to teach children the native Turkic language of the region, according to Radio Free Asia.

The linguist, Abduweli Ayup, who spent two years in the United States on a Ford Foundation scholarship, was released on Nov. 27, three months before the end of the 18-month sentence he received for “illegal fund-raising,” Radio Free Asia said on Friday, citing an interview with one of his relatives.

The charges stemmed from a fund-raising campaign to sell honey and T-shirts to benefit the schools.

Dilyar Obul and Muhemmet Sidik, two business associates who were convicted with Mr. Ayup in August, remain jailed in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, according to the news service, which is financed by the United States government. Radio Free Asia said the men were appealing their sentences.

Relatives and human rights advocates said the three men were punished after they sought to open a chain of “mother tongue” schools that would teach children the language traditionally used by members of the Uighur ethnic group.

Government officials in Xinjiang have been aggressively promoting Mandarin, China’s official language, in an effort to speed assimilation among the region’s 10 million Uighurs.

Court officials in Urumqi could not immediately be reached for comment Friday night.