The Case and Biography of Memet Yaqup, the Uyghur Fruit Exporter from Hami, Xinjiang, Sentenced to 16 Years

On June 19, 2026, this publication learned of the case and biography of Memet Yaqup, the Uyghur fruit exporter from Hami, Xinjiang, who was sentenced to 16 years in prison. The details are now reported as follows:

Memet Yaqup: Uyghur, born on April 28, 1968, from Kaladovey Township, Yiwu County, Hami City, Xinjiang; formerly a resident of No. 127 Tianshan South Road, Yizhou District, Hami City; later residing at No. 19 Beimen Street, Qiaoxi Subdistrict, Huicheng District, Huizhou City, Guangdong Province; Uyghur name Memet Yaqup; former civil servant, fruit exporter, and political prisoner detained in China.

In his early years, after graduating from university, he worked as a civil servant at a government-affiliated unit in Yizhou District, Hami City, Xinjiang. Seven years later, influenced by China’s “plunge into business” tide in the mid-to-late 1990s, he resigned from public service and established a business, becoming a fruit exporter based in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, whose main business was Hami melons; from then on, his business flourished, and because his family had built a strong economic foundation, he sent his son abroad in 2010 to study English in Malaysia. Later, in 2013, his son received a scholarship to pursue further studies in Turkey, so he provided his son with tremendous encouragement and financial support for his education;

In June 2018, he was suddenly arrested by police in Guangzhou for unknown reasons, and has been unreachable ever since. His son, Yaliqun, who was about to graduate with a bachelor’s degree from the Department of Economics at Istanbul University in Turkey, became anxious upon hearing the news and made inquiries everywhere. Unexpectedly, it took him two years to learn of his father’s whereabouts: he was being held in a re-education camp near Hami City, Xinjiang. The only reason he was arrested and detained was that he had relatives overseas and was considered “politically unreliable,” and was therefore classified as an “untrustworthy” person. His son, however, believed it might also have been because he had traveled to Malaysia and Thailand to discuss business, as well as to Turkey to visit relatives (because he, his wife, and his daughter are all in Turkey). In July 2022, it was learned that the authorities of Hami City, Xinjiang, under the Chinese Communist Party, had ultimately sentenced him to 16 years in prison on an unspecified charge, with his sentence scheduled to end in 2034. To this day since the sentencing, his family has been unable to learn the charge for which he was convicted, the specific location where he is being held, or the state of his health, while his relatives and friends in Xinjiang have also lost contact with them on WeChat because of a ban imposed by the authorities. He is currently serving his sentence in a prison somewhere in Ürümqi, Xinjiang.