U.S. demands immediate release of 19-year-old Uighur student from Chinese prison
WASHINGTON – The U.S. State Department has called for the immediate release of a 19-year-old Uighur student currently imprisoned in China.
A spokesperson told the media that the U.S. has called on China to immediately release Kamile Wayit, a preschool education student who has been detained since December for posting a video on a social media app.
Wayit, a student at a university in China’s Henan province, was detained for advocating extremism.
She was part of protests in which she held up blank sheets of paper to complain about COVID-19 restrictions and the lack of freedom of expression.
The protests had been sparked by a deadly fire at an apartment building in Xinjiang’s regional capital, Urumqi, that killed about 40 Uyghurs.
She was reportedly detained at her home in Atush, the capital of the Kyrgyz autonomous prefecture of Kizilsu in Xinjiang.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman had told The Economist that authorities had sentenced Wayit on March 25.
In 2017, Wayit’s father was sent to a “re-education” camp” for two years.
She also suffers from an eye disease.
Her brother Kewser Wayit, who lives in the U.S., said she was scheduled to undergo surgery in Beijing this summer.
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