Additional Name(s): ھەبىبۇللا توختى, 海尔布尔.土赫提
Gender: Male
Perpetrator: China
Ethnic Group: Uyghur
Religion or Belief: Muslim – Unspecified/Other
Reports of Torture: No
Reports of Medical Neglect: No
Sentence: 10 Years' Imprisonment
Date of Detainment: March//2017
Date of Sentencing: May//2017
Current Status: Not Released
Religious Leader: No
Most Recent Type of Abuse: Imprisonment
Reason for Persecution: Ethnoreligious Identity Religious Scholarship Travel Abroad
Nature of Charges: Unknown
Hebibulla Tohti is imprisoned for his religious scholarship and ethnoreligious identity.
In March 2017, security personnel in Urumqi municipality, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), detained Tohit, a well-known religious scholar. Tohit's detention came amid mass detentions of largely Muslim ethnic minorities in XUAR in 2017 and 2018.
In May 2017, a XUAR court sentenced Tohti to 10 years in prison on unspecified charges related to "illegal religious activity."
Tohti had been previously detained in relation to his travel abroad, where he allegedly taught Uyghur students in Egypt about religion and attended a religious conference in Saudi Arabia.
Photo attributed to Xinjiang Victims Database
"Hebibulla Tohti" Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC)
"Hebibulla Tohti" Xinjiang Victims Database