Abdurehim Heyit, the Uyghur poet and musician who has been in custody for the last few years for his artistic activities, which Chinese authorities view as a threat, has recently died, allegedly, as a result of torture. Details are sketchy, but the Turkish Foreign Ministry has announced that:
“We’ve learned with great sorrow that dignified poet Abdurehim Heyit, who was sentenced to eight years in prison for his compositions, died in the second year of his imprisonment...”Turkey condemns the treatment of the Uyghurs in the Xinjiang district of north-west of China as an "embarrassment for humanity" and has deplored their brutal treatment:
“It is no longer a secret that more than one million Uighur Turks – who are exposed to arbitrary arrests – are subjected to torture and political brainwashing in concentration centres and prisons...”The Chinese people are generous, inventive and gentle and their government was beginning to go the way of the people with the positive reforms started with Deng Xiaoping. Now, however, it is sadly turning towards authoritarianism and bullying. A government that turns against its own artists and journalists is like a cancer, sowing the seeds of its own destruction, but how much suffering will there be in the process?
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