Uighur Editor Korash Huseyin's Prison Sentence Expires

Editor Korash Huseyin completed his three-year prison sentence for "dereliction of duty" on February 2 and is presumed to have since been released from prison, according to information from the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) Political Prisoner Database. Radio Free Asia's Uighur service, which reported on the sentence's expiration in a February 1 article, reported that Chinese authorities have not provided confirmation of the release. Huseyin had served as chief editor of the Kashgar Literature Journal, based in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR), which published a short story in 2004 deemed to promote separatism. As noted in the CECC Political Prisoner Database, police initially detained Huseyin on February 3, 2005, one day after the Maralbéshi (Bachu) County People's Court sentenced the story's author, Nurmemet Yasin, to 10 years in prison for "inciting splittism." The same court sentenced Huseyin on July 14, 2005. Huseyin served his sentence in the Maralbéshi Prison. Yasin's story, Wild Pigeon, describes a caged bird who commits suicide rather than live without freedom. Authorities read the story as an attack against government policy in the XUAR. Yasin is serving his sentence in the Urumqi Number One Prison.

The sentences of Yasin and Huseyin, both members of the Uighur ethnic group, reflect widespread repression in the region. As noted in the CECC 2007 Annual Report (via the Government Printing Office Web site), the Chinese government has increased repression in the XUAR since 2001, and targets the Uighur population in particular with harsh policies to squelch political dissent and control expressions of religious and ethnic identity.