Ethnic Kazakh Religious Scholar Dies In Correctional Camp In China's Xinjiang

ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- Ethnic Kazakh religious scholar Baqytkhan Myrzan has died in a correctional camp in China's northwestern region of Xinjiang at the age of 61, his relatives say.

Myrzan's sister, Almakhan Myrzan, confirmed to RFE/RL on March 9 that her brother died in prison in Xinjiang, adding that he was sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2018 for performing an Islamic ritual at a religious event.

She also said that authorities in Xinjiang had ignored demands by Myrzan's relatives in China and Kazakhstan to release him due to a medical condition he had.

Almakhan Myrzan has been among dozens of people picketing the Chinese Embassy in Astana and China’s Consulate in Almaty for years, demanding their relatives held in China's correctional facilities to be released.

Neither Chinese nor Kazakh officials have commented on Myrzan's death.

China’s crackdown in Xinjiang has seen Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and Xinjiang's other indigenous ethnic groups put into mass detention camps. Since Beijing's dragnet accelerated in 2017, the plight of ethnic Kazakhs interned in China has been an unexpected source of dissent, with the testimonies of former detainees and family members fueling a guerrilla advocacy campaign that brought international attention to the issue.

This left the Kazakh government walking a tightrope between appeasing Beijing -- which denies the long list of abuses that have been documented in its camp system -- and dealing with an exasperated segment of its population lobbying for family members in China.

The U.S. State Department has said that as many as 2 million Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and members of Xinjiang's other indigenous, mostly Muslim ethnic groups have been taken to detention centers.

China denies the facilities are internment camps, but people who have fled the province say people from the groups are undergoing "political indoctrination" at a network of facilities officially referred to as reeducation camps.

Kazakhs are the second-largest Turkic-speaking indigenous community in Xinjiang after Uyghurs. The region is also home to ethnic Kyrgyz, Tajiks, and Hui, also known as Dungans. Han, China's largest ethnicity, is the second-largest community in Xinjiang.