The Han girl was rescued from the box, but 40 years later the Uighur foster father couldn't save her: the chain behind the 12-year prison sentence of the garage.

In 1986, the Uighur barbecuer Abdullah Tomul heard the baby crying outside a hospital in Guizhou. He took the abandoned baby girl and took her home. The couple had intended to take care of the Han children for a few days, and eventually raised them as Zhuhegegouri. Forty years later, Abdullah was in Turkey, while his daughter was serving her sentence in Xinjiang prison. <a href="https://www.rfa.org/english/uyghur/2026/10/08/xinjiang-uyghur-prison-china-abdulla-zohregul/"target" rel = "noopener noreferrer" data-linked-reference= "tru" data-reference-label = "Liber Asia Radio October Disclosure" </a" was released by Radio Free Asia in October and sentenced to 12 years for having adopted fathers to travel to Turkey and to read illegal religious materials as determined by the authorities.

This is a family story that transcends ethnic boundaries and is an alarming record of Chinese political reality: a Han girl grew up in a Uighur family and was eventually criminally punished for her adoptive father ' s overseas experience and her religious life. Her ethnic origin did not protect her, and the goodwill of the family did not prevent political pressure from entering her life.

The child who wasn't sent away

Abdullah, who had difficulty in making his livelihood, left the Xinjiang garage for Guizhou to earn his living. He went home from a stand and found abandoned babies outside the hospital, initially worried that the family had two years of young children and had difficulty supporting one more child. The wife could not bear to watch the baby suffer and feed her herself. The two sons soon also treated the newly arrived girl as their sister. When the child calls his or her parents, the couple can no longer hand her over.

One family later returned to the car, where Zokhgeguri grew up in Uighur, Muslim faith and local life. Parents who fail to disclose her ethnic Han origin are concerned about the neighbourhood and the additional difficulties involved in registering. In this family, it is not ethnic group that determines the relationship, but the years of living together.

In 2017, families were broken up

Abdullah went to Turkey in 2016 to visit his eldest son. The following year, Xinjiang began to hold Uighurs in large-scale detention, who remained in Istanbul for fear of returning to their homes. The news later came that both daughter Zohegeguly and second son Hegehim were imprisoned. At first, Abdullah was hard to understand even the specifics of the children.

He participated in protests outside the Chinese Consulate in Turkey, sought help from the media and publicly requested the authorities to release the child on social platforms. For the first time, he even declared the Zoheguri ethnic Han origin in order to gain opportunities for his daughter, hoping that the official authorities would give her a face. He is willing to return to Xinjiang and to exchange his freedom for his daughter ' s freedom.

But he didn't get to be reunited. A person who contacted him told him that his daughter had been sentenced to 12 years ' imprisonment, with three more years. subsequently contacted Radio Asia journalist in Xinjiang, was confirmed in custody by two family members and was informed that the reasons for the punishment of her daughter included her father's visit to Turkey and that she was reading religious material from abroad.

It's not blood, it's family

The Communist Party has long been strengthening its control of Xinjiang society on the grounds of counter-terrorism and the preservation of national unity. In the Zokhgegouri experience, the father ' s transnational travel and the religious reading of his daughter were linked to criminal punishment. The most disturbing place for a person to lose his or her liberty as a result of the behaviour of a family member is the symbiotic governance.

Abdullah told the outside world, in public, that he had the strength to take her out of the box, but that he was not able to save her from prison. Forty years ago, he chose to adopt a child without question; Forty years later, the family was broken up by State authority in the name of political security and religious administration.