Joshua L. Freeman The Uyghur people, who live primarily in the Xinjiang region of northwestern China, have for many centuries held poetry and poets in high esteem. While many aspects of Uyghur life have been altered by social, cultural, and political change over the last century, the importance of poetry in Uyghur culture remains undiminished. Perhaps that’s why modernist poetry, which burst onto the Uyghur ...

Free the Wild Pigeon Free the Wild Pigeon is a campaign to call attention to the plight of Nurmuhemmet Yasin, author of the fable Wild Pigeon. Nurmuhemmet was sentenced to 10 years' prison for writing this tragic but beautiful tale of a bird who sets out on a journey of discovery, but is captured and caged by humans. In the end, the pigeon commits suicide rather than live a life in captivity. Chinese author ...

by Ayesha Dear everyone, I would like to share with you a simple but impressive story of a Uyghur lady in exile, who has been fighting with a dragon, the Chinese government, using her broadcasting profession as a weapon. Her name is Gulchehra Abduqeyum Hoja and her people used to call her Gul, which means flower. She is very well known to the Uyghurs because of her unique style in TV programs back home as w ...

Amelia Smith interviews Abdugheni Sabit, a Uyghur activist who left China in 2007 and settled in the Netherlands. Sabit is currently appealing to the international community to put pressure on the Egyptian government to stop the forced deportation of Uyghur students to China where they will be imprisoned. Three months ago China’s spy agency contacted Uyghur students living in the US, Europe, Turkey and Egyp ...

Joshua Hammer The second-story rooms of the centuries-old mud-brick houses were cantilevered atop log beams and nearly touched each other across an alleyway paved with hexagonal stones. Women wearing dark veils leaned out of tiny windows. Poplar doors, painted bright blue or green and adorned with brass floral petals, stood half open—a subtle signal that the master of the house was inside. The aromas of fre ...