China Accused in Death of Uyghur Researcher Returning From Japan

The suspicious death in December 2020 of a Uyghur plant biology researcher at a detention facility in Xinjiang has drawn attention on social media.

Mihriay Erkin, 29, left her job at Japan’s Nara Technology and Science Institute in June 2019 and returned to China over concerns about the safety of her parents in Xinjiang. She was arbitrarily detained and sent to the Yanbulaq detention center in Kashgar in February 2020. Her relatives blame Chinese authorities for her death, which they say they learned about only recently. China denies all allegations pertaining to the persecution of Uyghurs and calls the internment camps "vocational institutes" that deradicalize extremists. “I learned the news almost six months after my niece Mihriay was killed by Chinese authorities, but I still don’t know if she has an actual grave or not,” said Abduweli Ayup,  Erkin’s uncle and a Norway-based Uyghur rights activist.