AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): A 49-year-old Uyghur woman, Seylihan Rozi, has been reportedly sentenced to 17 years in prison in Xinjiang for providing religious lessons to her two sons and a neighbor.
Authorities allege that Rozi engaged in “illegal underground religious activity” by teaching Quranic verses used in daily Muslim prayers, according to a report by Radio Free Asia (RFA) on Friday.
A police officer from Saybagh village, where the case was handled, confirmed the sentence but declined to provide further details about her imprisonment.
A staff member from the Bulaqsu Township Party Committee in Konasheher county, Kashgar prefecture, noted that Rozi, a resident of Saybagh village, was charged with “illegal religious activities.”
Chinese authorities have increasingly targeted Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Reports from leaked government documents, rights organizations, and former detainees indicate that religious acts such as praying, growing beards, or attending mosques have been criminalized under policies framed as combating separatism, terrorism, and extremism.
Rozi’s sons were also convicted in connection with her lessons. The Saybagh police officer stated that they received prison terms of seven and ten years for participating in what authorities labeled as “illegal religious education.”
Another official involved in Rozi’s case disclosed that her 17-year sentence stemmed from teaching religious practices to her neighbor, Yakup Hidayet, in addition to her sons. Hidayet was sentenced to nine years in prison.
Evidence from the Xinjiang Police Files, a collection of confidential records published in 2022 by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, corroborates the sentences given to Rozi’s sons, Sattar Kadir and Yusuf Ahmed Kadir. The files confirm that the sons received “illegal religious education” between 2004 and 2008, and that Rozi provided similar lessons to Hidayet over three days in June 2006.
While the files mentioned Rozi’s arrest, details of her sentencing were not included.
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