Twenty Years for Learning the Quran: Uyghur women imprisoned in China for decades-old religious practices, leaked files reveal

The Uyghur Human Rights Project’s (UHRP) new research report, Twenty Years for Learning the Quran: Uyghur Women and Religious Persecution, presents compelling evidence of the systematic oppression faced by Uyghur women, revealing stark persecution on the basis of religion. Women’s religious practices across the board, including studying religious texts, gatherings, daily prayer, and the choice to wear the hijab, have been explicitly criminalized.

“Our report provides detailed information on hundreds of Uyghur women persecuted for their religion. Many of them were condemned to long terms in prison for the ‘crime’ of learning a few verses of the Quran when they were children. The Chinese government has taken respected women of faith, senior community leaders, and educated young women, and subjected them to the dehumanizing regime of the region’s camps and prisons,” said Professor Rachel Harris, a co-author of the report.

Abduweli Ayup, co-author of the report, added, “We show how a colonial regime reengineered Uyghur communities by removing female leaders from society. Women were targeted as mothers, as teachers and as preservers of Uyghur traditional knowledge.”