Case details and biography of Arslan Abdulla, the former dean of the School of Humanities at Xinjiang University sentenced to 18 years

(Rights Protection Network Information Center report) On April 22, 2026, this outlet learned the case details and biography of Arslan Abdulla, the former dean of the School of Humanities at Xinjiang University who was sentenced to 18 years, and is now reporting them as follows:

Arslan Abdulla: Born in 1946, originally named Muhammad Wushur, from Artux, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region; his Uyghur name is Arslan Abdulla. He initially served as an editor for Hetian Daily, Kashgar and Tarim, and later for many years served as dean of the School of Humanities at Xinjiang University, a master's supervisor and academic leader of the national key discipline of minority languages and literature. He is a renowned Uyghur scholar and a political prisoner in China.

In his early years, he studied at the Central Institute for Nationalities; after graduating in 1968, he returned to Xinjiang and successively worked as an editor at Hetian Daily, Kashgar (magazine) and Tarim (literary monthly); beginning in 1970, he began publishing numerous literary works, including the representative works The Story of the Stars, a long poem, and Eternal Inspiration, a collection of poems. The Story of the Stars received the First National Minority Literature Award; in 1979, he obtained a degree in Uzbek language and literature from the Chinese Language Department of Xinjiang University; in 1990, he went to the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London in the United Kingdom as a visiting scholar and also served as a teaching assistant, mainly teaching courses such as basic Uyghur and sociolinguistics there, with modern Uyghur and sociolinguistics as his research fields; after returning to China and Xinjiang, he began serving as dean of the School of Humanities at Xinjiang University, as well as a professor and master's supervisor. In addition, he concurrently served as director of the Institute of Altaic Studies at Xinjiang University, director of the university's postdoctoral research station for Chinese language and literature, and academic leader of the national key discipline of minority languages and literature (including leading one national-level and one autonomous-region-level research project); during this period, he received the Baosteel Education Foundation's “Outstanding Teacher” Award and Xinjiang University's second prize for outstanding teaching achievements. He also successively held positions (or titles) as a director of the Chinese Rhetoric Society, the East Tianshan Ancient Yizhou Culture Research Institute, the Chinese Uyghur Historical and Cultural Research Association, the Chinese Altaic Studies Association, the Chinese “Educational Art” magazine, the Uyghur Ancient Literature and Muqam Research Association, the Autonomous Region Karez Research Association and the Autonomous Region Folk Culture Research Association; in addition, with regard to government policy orientation, he publicly expressed opposition to the “three forces” and religious extremist thought, a position affirmed by the Chinese Communist authorities; his career had originally been at its peak, and he had made considerable achievements in his field of research, but unexpectedly, since 2016, especially during 2017–2018, as the Chinese Communist authorities escalated their tight control over Xinjiang, many Uyghur and other ethnic-minority elite figures were seized by the authorities on various pretexts and sent to “re-education centers” for transformation;

In January 2018, he, along with then-Xinjiang University president Tashpolat Teyip (Tashpolat Teyip, see (CPPC number: 01513)) and four other Uyghur professors from the university, was also seized in its entirety and sent to the Hami Huicheng Detention Center (a modern detention facility combining multiple functions, including detention, custody, education and reform) for confinement; in the second half of the same year, all five were prosecuted and tried by judicial authorities in Ürümqi, Xinjiang, on suspicion of being “two-faced people, bribe-takers or terrorism-related personnel,” among other charges. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison, with his sentence running until January 2036; it is reported that during his detention and imprisonment, his health was poor, and he suffered from heart problems and high blood pressure.

He is currently serving his sentence in a prison in Ürümqi, Xinjiang.