Abduweli Ayup

A Writer, scholar and linguist specializing in Uyghur language education. Abduweli Ayup was born in 1973 near Kashgar in the Uyghur region. Upon graduation from Minzu University where he completed his bachelor studies in Turkic literature in 1997 and he got his Master degree in Xinjiang University 2001.

He lectured in Northwest Minzu University and Xinjiang financial and economic University for 9 years. He went to study at the University of Kansas in Lawrence where he held his master’s degree in linguistics in 2011.Abduweli opened language schools and kindergartens in the city of Ürumchi and Kashgar in 2011.

He was arrested in August 2013, accused of promoting separatist activity. After 15 months in detention, he fled to Turkey from China with his family in August 2015. In Turkey he collected camp detainees stories and documented Uyghur plights in diaspora. He translated the information, leaked lists and other evidence about Uyghur crisis into English and  presented them to the researchers, journalists and human rights organizations.

Since 2019 Abduweli lives in Bergen as a writer-in-residence through the ICORN program. Since September 2016 Abduweli had founded Uyghur Hjelp, with his team advocating, investigating and documenting Uyghur plight and providing aid to the Uyghurs Turkey .

From January 2017, he organized to have mother language schools among Uyghur diaspora, since then there were more than 70 Uyghur mother language classes started to teach Uyghur around world.

Since January 2017 he started to publish his mother language textbooks, now he had already published 9 text books for kids. He published six books in Uyghurs, published two included his essays and his jail memoirs in Turkish, his first English book will be published in October 2024 by Silkie Publishing House.