Uyghur torchbearer at 2008 Beijing Olympics detained by Chinese authorities: Reports

He was caught in a wider crackdown on the ethnic minority group.

Abduqeyum Semet was deputy director of Kashgar Kirembagh Hospital and later promoted to director of the Health Department of Kashgar (in Chinese, Kashi) prefecture, reports Radio Free Asia (RFA).

Abduweli Ayup, a Uyghur activist and linguist, originally from Kashgar but now residing in Norway, said he confirmed in 2019 through other Uyghurs living in exile that Abduqeyum had been detained, received a lengthy prison sentence, and was serving his term in a detention center administered by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), the news portal reported.

Abduweli, founder of the Uyghuryar Foundation, a Uyghur advocacy and aid organization also known as Uyghur Hjelp in Norwegian, has included Abduqeyum as a disappeared “Uyghur intellectual” on a list of detained Uyghurs he maintains. He says Abduqeyum is one of eight torchbearers from the 2008 Games that is now detained.

“He was a skilled cardiac surgeon. He was a highly revered doctor in Kashgar among the whole community,” Abduweli said.

When RFA called Kashgar Kirembagh Hospital, a staff member said that no one named Abduqeyum Semet worked there. The person said he only recently began working at the hospital and did not know if Abduqeyum had been employed there in the past. Other hospital employees said that they did not know the physician.

A court official in Kashgar contacted by RFA said that Abduqeyum had been imprisoned since 2018.

“It’s been four years,” he told RFA.

Another employee at the same court said that Abduqeyum was arrested in early 2018 for refusing to follow Chinese government directives and that he was criticized by different government bureaus in Kashgar.

Government officials issued papers on Abduqeyum so others could learn a lesson from his “bad example,” he said.

“It was said that the reason for his arrest was that he was not following Chinese government directives, which means he was not active in implementing government directives and policies,” the court official said.

He also said that court officials were aware that Abduqeyum had been moved to the prison administered by the XPCC.

RFA also contacted Chinese government officials who work with the judicial office in Kashgar, but they declined to provide information on Abduqeyum’s prison term or in which detention facility he is now being held. One of them said the doctor had been moved from an internment camp to a prison run by the Bingtuan.

Abduqeyum was a graduate of Xinjiang Medical University and later became a revered doctor in his community, Abduweli said.