Thread by @WilliamYang120

A national-level #Uyghur volleyball coach is serving an eight-year prison sentence for “befriending bearded men,” under a deepening crackdown on Islamic practices and culture, a Uyghur living in exile and a local police officer told RFA. rfa.org/english/news/u…

Alimjan Mehmut is serving his sentence in a detention center in Aksu (in Chinese, Akesu), according to information provided by the Norway-based rights organization Uyghur Hjelp.

His name is also on a list of Uyghur torchbearers for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games who have been imprisoned in recent years, caught in a wider crackdown on the ethnic minority group.

@AbduwelA said that Alimjan was one of at least six or seven instructors from the Kashgar Sports School hauled away by authorities in past years. Among those arrested were two other volleyball instructors.

“Through our sources, we learned that Alimjan Mehmut, and his colleagues, Ezizjan and Ezisqari, from the Kashgar Sports School were all arrested,” he said.

RFA contacted the sports school for information on Alimjan, but an official said that no instructor there had been arrested by authorities and refused to answer questions about the former coach after Alimjan’s name was mention.

But a local Chinese government police officer in Kashgar (Kashi) told RFA that Alimjan had been arrested for “befriending bearded men,” meaning that he had contact via cell phone or otherwise with Muslim Uyghurs deemed suspicious by authorities.

“He was arrested before I came to work here,” the police officer said. “He was sentenced two years ago.”