Church in Chains | Sept. 25, 2019
In early September, it was reported that six Uighur Christians had recently been imprisoned in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. The six Christians, some of whom are recent converts to Christianity, were charged with illegal preaching, gathering, and spreading harmful books, and were sentenced to between five and seven years in prison.
Mehmet Abdulla and Adil Jan were each sentenced to seven years in prison; Huji Abdurehim, Maimaiti Yimingjiang, a Christian doctor whose last name is Rakhman and a man identified only as Brother Adil were each sentenced to five years in prison.
Christians are a tiny minority among the mainly Muslim Uighurs, who comprise approximately 45% of Xinjiang’s estimated 22 million population. The Uighurs are a Turkic people (unlike the Han Chinese who comprise approximately 40% of Xinjiang’s population) and are concentrated in the southwest of the region.