Uyghur editor Qurban Mamut is serving a 15-year sentence on accusations of committing “political crimes.” Police in China’s Xinjiang region detained Mamut, the former editor-in-chief of the Uyghur-language magazine Xinjiang Civilization, in November 2017, and have held him incommunicado since then.
The influential state-owned Xinjiang Civilization published culture, history, and current affairs articles related to the Uyghur community. Mamut retired as editor in 2011 but continued to serve on the editorial board; he then became the head editor of a newly established magazine called Tepakkur, his son, Bahram Sintash, told CPJ.
Mamut disappeared in November 2017, shortly after visiting his son in the U.S. state of Virginia. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison in Xinjiang for “political crimes.” CPJ was unable to determine the date of his sentencing.
In October 2018, Sintash told Radio Free Asia that he learned that his father had been taken to an internment camp where Chinese authorities mass detain Muslim minorities, but did not know the exact location.
Mamut’s whereabouts and condition remained unknown until February 2022, when Sintash confirmed through family sources that his father was alive and imprisoned.
In late 2024, Sintash told CPJ via messaging app that his father, now 74, is being held at the Urumqi City Prison in Xinjiang and that he worried about his father’s health condition given his age.
As of late 2024, the Urumqi Public Security Bureau had not responded to CPJ’s request for comment sent by messaging app.
CPJ did not include Mamut in its 2023 prison census because it could not confirm that his arrest was related to his journalism at the time.