Uyghur student sentenced to 13 years in prison for VPN use
WASHINGTON – Bypassing official Internet access can be costly for Uighur students in China’s Xinjiang region.
According to reports, a student arrested in 2017 for using a virtual private network (VPN) was sentenced to 13 years in prison.
According to a police official quoted by the media, university student Mehmut Memtimin had bypassed official sensors to access the illegal information.
The police official said the student was lodged at Tumshuq Prison in Kashgar’s Maralbeshi district.
Memtimin was a computer science student at Xinjiang College’s Institute of Information and Technology in Urumqi.
Many Chinese citizens use VPNs to circumvent censorship, but rarely have they been arrested or punished as severely.
According to information from independent researcher Gene Bunin, Memtimin was forcibly detained by police in his hometown of Qaghiliq, about 1,500 kilometers from Urumqi,
Bunin collects records of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities who have been detained in the region.
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