An Uyghur intellectual and educator, who was detained the night before his daughter’s wedding five years ago, passed away just two months later while in Chinese custody.
Radio Free Asia has recently reported that Ibrahim Dawut, a 50-year-old former chemistry teacher at a high school in Kashgar, East Turkistan, was taken by Chinese police during a large-scale detention operation the day before his daughter’s wedding in 2019, and died in a detention camp two months later.
Dawut was a strong critic of China’s education policy, which, under the guise of “bilingual education,” enforced the mandatory use of Chinese for all subjects, and he advocated for education in the Uyghur language.
In 2019, Chinese authorities arrested Dawut during a widespread crackdown. Although the exact charges against him were unclear, sources indicated that his arrest was due to “his influence on society in Kashgar,” according to Uyghur activist Abduweli Ayup who had recently relocated to Europe.
Dawut had been under surveillance by the police since 2016 and had been summoned for questioning four or five times, according to the source. “On the night of July 28, 2019, the police took him away from his family, and we had no idea what had happened or why they took him,” the source recalled. At the time of his arrest, Dawut was in his late 50s, and his daughter was set to get married the following day. “We searched for him for about five to ten days before learning that the police had detained around 500 to 600 men, including him,” the source explained.
Radio Free Asia reported that Dawut translated Chinese textbooks into Uyghur for high school students in Kashgar and supplied them with educational materials in their native language. In addition, he opened bookshops in Kashgar and other locations, selling textbooks written in Uyghur. He also launched preparatory courses for foreign language exams and college entrance exams.
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