Uyghur website manager Gheyrat Niyaz, sometimes referred to as Hailaite Niyazi, was sentenced to 15 years in prison on July 23, 2010, after being convicted on charges of endangering state security. Police arrested Niyaz, who managed and edited the Uyghur-language news website Uyghurbiz, in his home in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region’s capital of Urumqi on October 1, 2009.
According to reports, Niyaz was punished because of an August 2, 2009, interview with Yazhou Zhoukan (Asia Weekly), a Chinese-language magazine based in Hong Kong. In the interview, Niyaz said authorities had not taken steps to prevent violence before ethnic unrest in July 2009 in China’s far-western Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
Niyaz, who once worked for the state newspapers Xinjiang Legal News and Xinjiang Economic Daily, managed and edited Uyghurbiz until June 2009. A statement posted on the website quoted Niyaz’s wife as saying that although he had given interviews to international media, he had no malicious intentions.
Authorities blamed local and international Uyghur sites for fueling the violence between Uyghurs and Han Chinese in the predominantly Muslim Xinjiang region.
The U.S.-based group Chinese Human Right Defenders reported in 2011 that Niyaz is held in Changji Prison in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
Niyaz’s 15-year sentence ended on September 30, 2024, but as of late 2024, CPJ could not determine whether he had been released. Uyghur rights organizations CPJ has consulted also could not confirm Niyaz’s release. The majority of Uyghur intellectuals are still subject to mass arbitrary detentions at the internment camps or prolonged prison terms.
CPJ’s requests for comment sent via messaging app in late 2024 to the Xinjiang governmental service and the Xinjiang region prison administration about Niyaz did not receive a response.