Key Passages Talk: When the Uyghur Language Confronts Atrocity

Over the last decade, the persecution of Uyghurs in China has attracted global attention. When Uyghur was officially banned from education by the Chinese government in September 2016, Uyghur editors were arrested and heavily sentenced, and books were collected and burned. Private bookstores were shut down and Uyghur publishers and bookstore owners were sentenced. Today, Uyghur linguists, writers, and journalists remain persecuted. In January 2017, Uyghurs started to organize mother language schools, publish textbooks, and write story books for kids. There are now four Uyghur publishing houses, two bookstores, three online libraries among the Uyghur diaspora, and more than 70 Uyghur mother language classes, both online and in-person, teaching Uyghur around the world. 

In this talk, Abduweli Ayup will discuss his 2013 arrest for teaching the Uyghur language to kindergarteners, his activism, and his advocacy for Uyghur language education in China and the diaspora. Audience Q&A and a reception will follow.

Abduweli Ayup is a writer, activist, and linguist, specializing in Uyghur-language education. He has lived in Bergen, Norway since 2019 as a writer-in-residence through the International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN) program. Abduweli founded Uyghur Hjelp in 2016, which investigates and documents the Uyghur plight, publishes books, and supports Uyghur bookstores, kindergartens and schools, and engages in advocacy. He has published six books in Uyghur, his essays and jail memoirs in Turkish, and his first English-language book will be published in September 2025 by Silkie Publishing House.

Cosponsored by the IHC’s Key Passages series and the Sara Miller McCune and George D. McCune Endowment