A retired Uyghur postal worker in China’s Xinjiang region, released from an internment camp due to health issues, was rearrested in 2020 and sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment for participating in “illegal religious activities”, said a media report.
First detained in 2017, Ba’imhan Mamut, a retired postal worker in Hotan prefecture, was released after two years due to her critical health condition, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported citing Ba’imhan’s daughter Nurbia who lives in the US.
Ba’imhan and other detainees in the internment camp were stripped of their socks and shoes while being held in cold cells, according to Nurbia who believes that her mother’s health may have been affected by such conditions.
“She was later released due to her health condition, particularly not being able to stand or walk. I learned that even the detainees in camps were not given socks let alone shoes,” the media outlet quoted Nurbia as saying.
Ba’imhan, who underwent treatment post her release in 2019, was rearrested in 2020 and sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment. She is currently serving her sentence in a prison in Kashgar, as per Nurbia.
Sentenced for her crime of “religious extremism”, Ba’imhan is over 60 years old, RFA reported citing an official from a police station near the Hotan prefectural post office.
Notably, China has been rebuked globally for the crackdown on Uyghur Muslims by sending them to mass detention camps, interfering in their religious activities, and sending members of the community to undergo some form of forcible re-education or indoctrination.
The Chinese government, which stepped up its crackdown on Uyghurs in 2017, is said to have held 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in a network of detention camps in Xinjiang since 2017.