In China, Uyghur people are being rounded up and forced into internment camps. Over two years ago, Yiliyasijiang Reheman went missing while studying in Egypt – his family believe he was taken. Demand his release now.
Two years ago, Yiliyasijiang (also known as Elyas) and his wife Mairinisha were expecting their second baby. The young couple were building a new future for themselves, studying in Egypt – far away from their home in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China, where Uyghur people and other mainly Muslim ethnic people face daily discrimination.
But their lives were shattered in July 2017 when the Egyptian authorities started rounding up hundreds of Uyghur people in Egypt and handing them over to the Chinese government. The family tried to flee from Egypt – but Elyas didn’t make it onto the plane. He hasn’t been seen since.
Mairinisha suspects he’s in one of China’s secret internment camps where Uyghurs are brainwashed with Chinese government propaganda.
Up to 1 million mainly Muslim people have been torn from their families and locked up in these camps since 2017 – a scandal that has unleashed a powerful movement for truth around the world.
Just after he was taken away, Elyas’s daughter was born. Mairinisha has been searching for her husband, never losing hope that their family will one day be reunited.
“Our children need their father. I will never give up until we can be reunited with my husband,” Mairinisha says.
Write for Rights is the global moment that brings Amnesty supporters together in our millions to defend people like Elyas. Your messages not only put pressure on governments, they show people under threat and their families that they are not alone, and gives them the strength when people in power take their rights away.
Call on the Chinese government to:
- Release Yiliyasijiang Reheman
- Close the political ‘re-education’ camps’, disclose the whereabouts of the people kept in the camps and ensure while detained that they have access to family members and lawyers of their choice.