Abrak, a state radio employee in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, was serving a three-year prison term for promoting “splittism,” according to information the Chinese government provided in June 2010 to the California-based human rights advocacy organization Dui Hua Foundation.
An employee of the advertising department of the state-run Xinjiang People’s Radio Station, she was removed from her post in August 2008 and imprisoned. Her colleagues told the U.S.-government funded Radio Free Asia that her imprisonment stemmed from articles criticizing the government that were posted on overseas websites. Radio Free Asia referred to her as Mehbube Ablesh.
Authorities imprisoned a number of journalists who covered ethnic unrest in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, a politically sensitive issue that is considered off-limits.