Ethnic Kazakh journalist Kuandyk Koben is being held in pre-trial detention on undisclosed charges. Police in Urumqi, the capital of China’s Xinjiang region, arrested Koben in April 2024, and have held him incommunicado since then.
Koben, who worked as a Kazakh-language producer, director, and presenter for state-run broadcaster Xinjiang Television, won several awards for his documentaries about Xinjiang’s communities and culture. According to U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Asia, his arrest may be linked to his work documenting historical sites in Xinjiang. Researchers have said Beijing has increasingly destroyed or damaged cultural heritage sites in Xinjiang in recent years as part of a systematic campaign to erase local culture.
Atajurt Kazakh Human Rights, a human rights organization based in Kazakhstan that first reported Koben’s arrest in June, told CPJ that they had no information on Koben’s whereabouts as of late 2024.
CPJ was unable to determine whether the journalist has been formally charged with any crime or his health status.
As of late 2024, the Urumqi Public Security Bureau had not responded to CPJ’s request for comment sent via messaging app.