Ayshe Abdurehim and her siblings saw their father detained not long after the family returned from Turkey in 2016. From mid-2017, there was no news of Ayshe at all, until she appeared in a 2018 Douyin video shot at a Hotan orphanage.
Address: Yiltizliq Village, Terim Municipality, Yopurgha County, Kashgar Prefecture (喀什地区岳普湖县铁热木镇依勒提孜力克村).name: Ayshe Abdurehim
gender: female
ethnicity: Uyghur
age: 6 (as of 16 JAN 2019)
Her mother Qelbinur Tursun (from Terim township, Yupurgha village in Kashgar prefecture) left for Turkey on 12 April 2016 together with Ayshe’s father Abdurehim Rozi and one of Ayshe’s siblings. While her mother and sibling remained in Turkey, her father was arrested and imprisoned upon his return to China.
Ayshe has been living with her uncle and aunt and four siblings in Urumchi. Her last known whereabouts were at his mother’s home in Kashgar, where she stayed with her mother’s older sister and her four siblings. The last time her mother received news about her and her siblings through her older sister was on 27 July 2017. After this date, her mother did not know what happened to her until on 24 December 2018, her mother identified Ayshe in a video posted online. The video shows Ayshe with other Uyghur children in a school or orphanage in Hotan.
current location
A video that showed her and other children, at what appeared to be an orphanage, surfaced in late 2018 and was traced to Hotan. However, it is unclear if Ayshe is still there (as she is originally from Yopurgha County in Kashgar).Hotan
chronology of detention(s)
Ayshe's mother traveled to Turkey on April 12, 2016, together with Ayshe's father and one of her siblings. While her mother and one sibling remained in Turkey, her father returned to China with Ayshe and four of her siblings, and was arrested and imprisoned upon his return.
Afterwards, Ayshe would live with her aunt, uncle, and four siblings in Urumqi. Her last known whereabouts were at her mother's home in Kashgar, where she stayed with her maternal aunt and siblings. The last time that her mother received direct news of them (from the aunt) was on July 27, 2017.
After a year and a half of no news, Ayshe was seen in a video on December 24, 2018, apparently taken at an orphanage in Hotan and seen by Ayshe's mother. There has been no other news since.unknown, the last time her mother could confirm her that she was in the custody of a relative was on 27 July 2017
suspected and/or official reason(s) for detention
---unknown
last reported status
Possibly in an orphanage (though there has been no news since December 2018).
In mid-to-late 2019, Sky News tried to find Ayshe by checking various orphanages in the region, but were not successful.
At a press conference in January 2020, Enwer Ablimit claimed that at some point after Qelbinur Tursun left Xinjiang, her brother-in-law, Abduweli Rozi, took her children in, and has been raising them ever since at his home in Yopurgha County. Enwer Ablimit denied that the five children had been sent to a school in Hotan, and claimed that they are attending a local school. [It is not clear how genuine this is.]probably in an orphanage
In summer-fall 2019, Sky News tried to find Ayshe by checking various orphanages, but were not successful.
Testimony 6: Enwer Ablimit claims that at some point after Qelbinur Tursun left Xinjiang, her brother-in-law, Abduweli Rozi, took her children in, and has been raising them ever since at his home in Yopurgha County. Enwer Ablimit denies that the five children have been sent to a school in Hotan, and claims that they are attending a local school. [It is not clear how genuine this is.]
how testifier(s) learned of victim's situation
Ayshe's mother saw a video of her daughter in what appeared to be a state-run orphanage and called the person who posted it, who then said that it was taken in Hotan.She saw a video of her daughter in what appeared to be a state-run orphanage and called the person who posted it, who then said that it was taken in Hotan.
Xinjiang press conference where the case was mentioned, held on January 20, 2020 (Testimony 6): https://archive.vn/GeG3E
miscellaneous media evidence
Context: Qelbinur Tursun left to go to Turkey with her husband and one of their six children in April 2016. Her husband would later return to Xinjiang and be arrested, with the five remaining children left in the care of their aunt and uncle. From July 2017, however, Qelbinur no longer had any news of her children or what happened to them afterwards, until she saw a video of her daughter, Ayshe, on the Chinese platform Douyin in December 2018. In the video, Ayshe (second from the left), is seen with other children at what appears to be a boarding school (presumably, "orphanage"), as the group plays a game of touching the object or body part that their teacher instructs them to touch.
