Today, I learned that my former colleague, Mirkamil Ahmed, who has been like a kid brother to me since 2006, has been sentenced to nine years in prison by Chinese authorities. A father of three and a person of great character, Mirkamil’s alleged crime is his association with me. In May, I had learned that five former colleagues, including Mirkamil, were sentenced to seven years, but today I discovered, through a source who read the official verdict, that Mirkamil’s sentence is actually nine years.

After I began working for a U.S. media organization, Chinese authorities labeled me as "a key person related to terrorism." Once recognized as a "Chinese national youth model," I am now targeted, and individuals like Mirkamil are imprisoned simply for having worked closely with me before I left China in 2017, as repression against Uyghurs intensified.

In this picture taken in 2017 at the school where we worked together just before I left abroad, Mirkamil is second from the left. The rest in the picture are Chinese officials from Urumqi’s Tengri Tagh District education bureau.

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