Gulmira Imin

Extra Bio Info:

Gulmira Imin is imprisoned for her ethnoreligious identity and protesting against Uyghur treatment.

On July 14, 2009, Imin, web administrator for the Uighur-language website Salkin, was arrested in Aksu, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) after authorities alleged she had organized protests on July 5, 2009, against Uyghur migrant worker deaths in Guangdong province. They also accused her of posting an announcement for the protests on Salkin and leaking state secrets by phone to her husband in Norway. Imin's family was not notified of her arrest and was unaware of her location until she appeared in a state media documentary wearing prison garb in October 2009.

On April 1, 2010, the Urumqi Intermediate People’s Court sentenced Imin to life in prison for "splitting the state" (Art. 103 CCL), "leaking state secrets" (Art. 111 CCL), and "organizing an illegal demonstration (Art. 296 CCL). Imin reportedly said at trial that authorities tortured her in detention and coerced her into signing a document she had not read. She was also reportedly not allowed to meet with her lawyer until the trial.

According to reports in June 2021, authorities in XUAR reduced her life sentence to 19 years and eight months after she signed a written statement of remorse in 2017, which is believed to have been coerced.

Imin is serving her sentence in Xinjiang Women’s Prison (Xinjiang No. 2 Prison), Urumqi.

Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-VA) advocates for Imin as part of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission's Defending Freedoms Project.