Ten years ago, a Uighur textbook was produced and ten years later it was still in prison: the cultural and criminal power in the case of Tatilliquín Viz

On 6 October 2016, the long-standing participation in the development of the Uighur language teaching materials, Tooribun Tiz, was taken away from Urumqi. The same week after 10 years, the Chinese Human Rights Network once again announced the situation of the scholar in prison: in 2018 he was sentenced to 15 years for “inciting subversion of State power”, and his family was unable to meet or communicate regularly for a long time. (a) At 60, there should still be a prison sentence of about five years; His family had difficulty in confirming the state of health and daily life in prison.

Why did a textbook editor become a national security criminal?

Born in 1966, he graduated from Xinjiang University, where he worked in broadcasting and then joined Xinjiang Educational Publishing House. He has been a long-standing participant in the preparation of teaching materials, syllabuses and related literature in Uighur and has also been the author of literary criticisms, cultural and historical reviews. Between 2001 and 2011, the development of teaching materials was directed at a wide range of schools. For ordinary students, these materials are a daily tool for learning their mother tongue; For local governments in charge of education, the content of the material was subsequently the subject of re-entry into political risk.

Following the further tightening of Xinjiang political governance in 2016, a number of editors and intellectuals associated with the development of Uighur textbooks were detained. On 6 October 2016, the country lost its liberty, was formally arrested on 30 December 2016 and sentenced to 15 years ' imprisonment on 3 January

1. PEN describes its charges as “incitement to overthrow State power” on the basis of public records. Early rights-based reports also listed allegations of ethnic division and ethnic hatred, and precise legal statements of the charges should be based on the decision-making material cited in United Nations documents, and the various sources could not be classified as the subject of the judgement without distinction.

The process of transforming the content of the teaching materials from teaching materials to political evidence is the process of moving the case beyond ordinary criminal journalism. The work of an editor, which had been approved by the educational system and used in schools, could then be redefined by the State authorities on a changed political scale. This means that the education system does not have only the administrative power to change educational materials, but also places the former normal, long-term professional work at risk retroactively.

The United Nations made a clear judgement, and the Chinese Government failed to implement it.

In 2022, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention adopted Opinion No. 64/2022, examining the issue of arrest, detention, trial and discrimination in the case of Terriquin. The Working Group finds that his deprivation of liberty constitutes arbitrary detention, in violation of the relevant provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, falling into four categories of different violations of rights, and explicitly considers that the appropriate remedy should be immediate release, compensation and other remedies.

The news value of this conclusion lies not in the concern of another international body, but in the fact that the United Nations Working Group has adopted a formal opinion document that makes specific judgements on the legal and procedural facts of the individual case; The Chinese authorities still let him spend his tenth anniversary in prison. This makes the responsibility no longer merely an abstract dispute of international opinion, but a specific case with a document number, an express remedy and a long-standing failure to implement the facts.

The international community has more than once called for names.

In 2025, PEN International included TIQUN in the case of the "Retained Writers' Day"; In August 2026, the Latin American human rights institution CADAL awarded him the Gracile Fernández Meijide Human Rights Award, which was presented to him in Argentina by representatives of the Uighur group. There is no one on the podium, just as he was excluded from the public space after his vast body of literature and teaching materials had shaped the written experience of a generation of students.

Repeated awards cannot be a substitute for release, let alone for the family to know where the father is being treated and cared for for. According to a 7 October briefing by the Network, family members have been unable to meet and communicate for a long time. Even if some problems with the expression of certain teaching materials are perceived, the educational institutions should deal with disputes through open academic and administrative procedures; The use of heavy sentences, prolonged isolation and family failure to deal with cultural work means that State authority transforms language education and expression of ideas into a security threat.

It's a complaint against memory.

The clear chain of responsibility in the case of Gyrigun consists of education management, review of teaching materials, public security arrests, criminal decisions and prison detention. Those who approve the school entrance and who decides to trace their political nature later, and who is responsible for guaranteeing the right to information and communication to family members after sentencing, should be able to access independent reporting.

Ten years later, the case cannot leave a title “Fifteen years for the preparation of teaching materials”. If a State allows the legal mother tongue education of the past to be used as evidence of crime after a change in political routes, it is difficult for anyone involved in public culture to foresee when their professional work will be re-convicted. The ten years of the company of the Chinese nation are a concrete measure of how Chinese national policy reaches out to the classroom, books and family life.