{"id":726,"date":"2021-06-18T16:40:02","date_gmt":"2021-06-18T13:40:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/?p=726"},"modified":"2021-06-18T16:40:03","modified_gmt":"2021-06-18T13:40:03","slug":"uyghur-businessman-sentenced-to-17-years-in-prison-for-ties-to-turkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/uyghur-businessman-sentenced-to-17-years-in-prison-for-ties-to-turkey\/","title":{"rendered":"UYGHUR BUSINESSMAN SENTENCED TO 17 YEARS IN PRISON FOR TIES TO TURKEY"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

RFA<\/a>. 17 June 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Below is an article published by RFA<\/a>. Photo:undated.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Uyghur founder of a grocery store chain with more than 500 food stores and 200 product lines throughout China\u2019s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) was sentenced in May to more than 17 years in prison for his alleged \u201csuspicious\u201d relations with Turkey, following a three-year investigation, sources outside and inside the region told RFA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Authorities detained Musajan Imam, the founder and owner of Ihlas shops, in 2018, and held his trial last month. He was sentenced to 17 and a half years in jail, according to the Norway-based \u201cUyghuryar\u201d Foundation, which recently obtained information about the businessman\u2019s case from a source well-connected to political and legal matters in the XUAR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe received information that Musa Imam was sentenced to 17 years and six months\u2019 imprisonment,\u201d said Uyghuryar founder and linguist Abduweli Ayup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RFA was able to confirm the sentencing and further details from relevant officials in the XUAR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musajan was praised by the Chinese government as a \u201cmodel of reform and opening up\u201d after he introduced food products made by Ulker, a Turkish food and beverage brand, to markets in the XUAR in the early 2000s. His business enterprise also includes 50 wholesale outlets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMusajan Imam founded Ihlas in 2002,\u201d Abduweli said. \u201cThe Ihlas company worked with companies such as Ulker in Turkey and opened branch companies and shops in cities such as Urumqi (in Chinese, Wulumuqi), Kashgar (Kashi), Hotan (Hetian), Turpan (Tulufan), and Qomul (Hami). Musa Imam was detained in June of 2018.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 2018, he had become a \u201csuspicious person\u201d in the eyes of the authorities and was taken into state custody from an Ihlas office in the XUAR\u2019s capital Urumqi on June 14 of that year, Abduweli said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During early interrogations, police asked Musajan for information about the origins and history of his business trade with Turkey, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They also demanded information about the identities of people on the Turkish side of his business dealings, and his conversations with them, especially ones he had with Kursad Tuzman, Turkey\u2019s former minister of state responsible for foreign trade from 2002 to 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musajan told police that his communications had been permitted and open, and that there were no issues that needed to be reported, Abduweli said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the information we received, the fact that Musa Imam distributed products by the Turkish company Ulker and had close relationships with high-level leaders in Turkey were given as reasons [for his detention],\u201d Abduweli said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several reasons for arrest<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A court official in Kizilsu Kirghiz (Kezileisu Keerkezi) Autonomous Prefecture, where the trial and sentencing took place, declined to comment on the case, saying it was sensitive. But the officials did not deny that the businessman had been tried among a group of leading Uyghur entrepreneurs who recently stood trial and were sentenced in the city of Atush (Atushi).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Records from Musajan\u2019s interrogations suggest that other \u201cissues\u201d for which he was detained included his role in expanding halal foods in the XUAR, the Uyghur style he used to decorate his buildings, the businesses he owned, the identities of the people and organizations to whom he gave zakat<\/em> (tithes), and his donations for the building of two elementary schools, Abduweli said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China has in recent years tightened the repression of Uyghur and Islamic cultural practices under in what authorities say is an effort to combat extremism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musajan\u2019s relationship with Turkey weighed heavily in his sentencing, Abduweli added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBased on this information, we see Musajan Imam\u2019s detention as connected to things like his long-standing relationships to people in the political class in Turkey and his role in creating a social environment to strengthen relations between Uyghurs and Turks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musajan is the younger brother of the late Kudrat Imam, a well-known entrepreneur who founded Qiran Burkut Real Estate. Kudrat and another of Musajan\u2019s older brothers, Rozi Imam, received Turkish citizenship. Musajan was interrogated about his relationship with his older brothers when questioned by the authorities, Abduweli said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musajan\u2019s brothers did business in Central Asia and Turkey, and in the 1990s they built a 20-story building in Urumqi for a shopping center called Kiran Burkut. This building was a very visible structure reflecting Uyghur culture in the city at the time, alongside another shopping center built by Uyghur businesswoman and political activist Rebiya Kadeer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An official at the Atush Intermediate People\u2019s Court told RFA to contact the prosecuting authorities for information about Musajan\u2019s arrest and sentencing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another source claiming familiarity with the situation told RFA that Musajan had been conducting business separately from his two brothers in Turkey since 2005, specifically to guard against any scandals or trouble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musajan had a disagreement with his Chinese business partners while he and his brothers were constructing a building in Urumqi in the early 2000s before he separated his businesses from those of his Turkish-citizen brothers, Abduweli said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The brothers used their Turkish citizenship as a means of resolving the issue, but the incident was later raised and used as retaliation against Musajan in the post-2017 environment in the XUAR, when Chinese authorities began forcing Uyghurs into \u201cre-education\u201d camps, Abduweli said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEven though this situation was more or less resolved back at the time, after the start of the mass detention campaign in 2017, the Chinese government brought this issue back up and blamed [Musajan], saying that [the brothers] had used their Turkish citizenship to put pressure on the [Chinese] government,\u201d Abduweli said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Such good works\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musajan\u2019s case is one of the highest secrecy cases in the XUAR, Abduweli said. The businessman has not seen his family since his 2018 detention, nor have his relatives been formally notified of the verdict of his recent trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musajan\u2019s son-in-law, Muzappar Imam, the general manager of his company, and his nephew, Akbar Ala, the owner of Hayat Trading Company, were also arrested and sentenced in April trials, according to information obtained by the Uyghuryar Foundation. The lengths of the two men\u2019s sentences are unknown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An official working in investigations in Atush confirmed that Musajan is currently serving his sentence in the city\u2019s Aghu Prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musajan\u2019s business, formally called Ihlas Professional Development Company, has more than 2,000 employees. In addition to creating jobs for many young Uyghurs, Ikhlas has also long been a leading business in the local economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ihlas company also addressed traffic issues, laid roads in Azaq in Atush, and built a water tower in the city so that locals had clean water drink. The company also provided assistance to Xinjiang University students facing financial difficulties and distributed more than 100 million yuan (U.S. $15.6 million) annually to help the poor in Kashgar, Hotan, and Atush.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEven having done such good works, Imam Musa, his son, and his nephew were unable to escape detention,\u201d Abduweli said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RFA. 17 June 2021 Below is an article published by RFA. Photo:undated. The Uyghur founder of a grocery store chain with more than 500 food stores and 200 product lines throughout China\u2019s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) was sentenced in May to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=726"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":727,"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726\/revisions\/727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}