Tursunjan Memet Marshal is an important blogger, web administrator, civil rights activist. He and other bloggers arrested in spring 2016. Uyghur websites, blogs and WeChat saloon shut down; owners targeted first. It was the beginning of the mass arrest against the Uyghur intellectuals, public figures, religious scholars, and entrepreneurs.
Tursunjan was administrator of Misranim, a well-known forum and a web writer, and web reporter. He was arrested on March 29, 2016.
When he was working for Misranim website, he has published a lot of great essays on Baghdash, Bozqir and other websites. On February 21, 2013, he came to Kashgar from Korla to participate in the celebration of Mother Language Day as a reporter.
On March 19, 2013, in Urumqi, he came to participate as a reporter to the Nowruz celebration for the protection of the Uyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Shibe and Moghul languages. However, the Nowruz was canceled somehow actually.
On June 25, 2013, one of the Uyghur language advocates and a scholar, Abduwali Ayup, held a conference in Urumqi about the importance of Uyghur language kindergartens and Tursunjan attended the conference as a reporter.
He got arrested from home in March 29 suddenly. The police came to his home did not tell any reason or did not even show any paperwork. The anonymous person said that the reason for the arrest of Tursunjan was related to the publication.
When he was working for Misranim, he posted an article which translated into Uyghur language from Chinese. It was the news analysis from Chinese “Global Times” magazine. The analysis in “Global Times” was titled “The Radio Free Asia is cooperating with East Turkistan Terrorist organizations in the west”. He got arrested, because of publishing it on Misranim network. His case was filed in Aksu, and the translator of the news analysis is a writer and translator named Omarjan Hasan Bozqir, who works in Aksu. That is why Tursunjan Memet was sent to Aksu for his trial.
Tursunjan Memet Marshal is currently being held in a Aksu prison. There is no clear evidence how long he got sentenced and there is not any news about his wellbeing.
