Nurbiye Nurtay, Uighur

Nurbiye Nurtay, an ethnic Uyghur Muslim from northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), has been living in Malaysia practicing traditional Uyghur medicine for the last three years.  She lost contact with her family in Ghulja (Yining) county, in the XUAR's Ili Kazakh (in Chinese, Yili Hasake) Autonomous Prefecture, nearly a year ago, and only recently discovered that her 60-year-old mother, Elenur Eqilahun, is being held in one of the many “political re-education camps” throughout Xinjiang, where authorities have been detaining Uyghurs accused of harbouring “extremist” and “politically incorrect” thoughts since April last year.  While she is unsure of Eqilahun’s location, Nurtay recently told RFA’s Uyghur Service that she believes police detained her mother to force her to return from Malaysia, one of a number of countries that in recent years has forcibly returned Uyghurs to China, in what rights groups say is a violation of international law.   https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/mother-05312018150607.html
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8-31-18   While investigating the political re-education camp network in Aksu, RFA’s Uyghur Service spoke with an officer at the Onsu county police station who said that “30,000 people” from the county are currently held in re-education camps.

As reports indicate that nearly none of the people held in the camps are Han Chinese, the police officer’s statement suggests that more than 16 percent of the county’s Uyghur population, or slightly more than one out of every six Uyghurs in the region, are currently detained for “re-education.”   https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/onsu-08312018155418.html