A prominent Uighur musician who was rumored to have disappeared into a re-education camp in China’s northwest Xinjiang Autonomous Region is to perform in Shanghai next month, the event organizer said on Monday.
Singer-songwriter Sanubar Tursun would perform at an award ceremony organized by the Shanghai Conservatory of Music on Monday, the conservatory’s head of propaganda, who only shared her surname, Chen, told reporters.
Tursun’s public appearance would come almost one year after her rumored detention in Xinjiang, where an estimated 1 million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic minorities have been held in internment camps.
After initially denying their existence, Beijing now defends Xinjiang’s camps as “vocational education centers” that are necessary to counter religious extremism and terrorism.
Tursun is “not only a household name locally, but also the most famous Uighur female musician in the world,” the conservatory wrote on WeChat on Sunday.
“In these past years, she has been active in the international music scene,” it added, citing concerts in Turkey, the UK, France and Canada.
In December last year, news of Tursun’s disappearance circulated online, joining that of other Uighur cultural icons, such as comedian Adil Mijit.
According to his son-in-law, Mijit has been incommunicado since November last year.
“I think it would be premature to see [a Shanghai appearance] as a sign that the situation for the majority of Uighurs is actually improving,” said Rachel Harris, a long-time friend of Tursun.
Other high-profile musicians, such as Abdurehim Heyit, have been “allowed out and then placed in the position of mouthing the [Chinese Communist] Party line,” she said, referring to a video of Heyit performing for a Turkish delegation published earlier this year.
Agence France-Presse could not independently verify the authenticity of the video.
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