Xinjiang Writer Missing for Two Months, Family Receives No Notification
Xinjiang Kazakh writer Zhens Reshan was accused of "promoting extremist thoughts" and "having extremist thoughts himself," and has lost normal contact with his family since March 19, 2026, and has been detained for over two months. His son, Nartai, a Kazakhstani citizen, stated that the family has not received any oral or written notification from the CCP government departments, nor any court judgment documents.
Nartai said he still does not know his father's exact whereabouts, only hearing that his father was taken to a prison in Hami City, Xinjiang. On April 15, he asked his sister, who also holds Kazakhstani nationality, to go to Barikun Kazakh Autonomous County, Xinjiang, to inquire with the local public security bureau, procuratorate, and other departments, but received no effective information.
According to Nartai, Zhens had been taken away for interrogation by the police multiple times since December 28, 2025, under the pretext of "investigation and questioning," with each instance lasting from a few days to a week. After March 19, 2026, the family could no longer maintain normal contact with him. No official documents were issued locally; the claims of "promoting extremist thoughts" and "having extremist thoughts himself" were only news the family heard from relatives within China.
Serkjen, the founder of the Kazakh human rights organization "Atazhurtle Volunteers Organization," who is following this case, stated that Zhens is very famous among Kazakhs in Xinjiang, having been active in television and cultural activities in the past, primarily creating children's literature and humorous works. He published works such as "The Growth Record of Tompak," some of which were translated into Chinese.
Public records show that Zhens Reshan is a member of the China Writers Association and the Xinjiang Writers Association, and once served as the chairman of the Hami Regional Writers Association, and received honors such as the Top Ten Outstanding Young Writers of Xinjiang and the Xinjiang Junma Literature Award. That a writer of children's literature would eventually be labeled with "extremist thoughts" is an absurd example of the CCP's governance of Xinjiang: in their eyes, children reading stories can be extremist, ethnic languages can be extremist, cultural memory can be extremist, but only barbed wire, surveillance cameras, and police stations are never extremist.
Nartai also stated that his father had been under long-term restrictions before being detained. Over the past ten years, Zhens's passport was confiscated by the local public security, and he was not allowed to travel abroad; even when leaving the Hami region within China, he would be questioned by phone by the public security, community, and security bureau departments. His social media accounts, such as Douyin and WeChat official accounts, were also banned.
After Nartai left China to study in Kazakhstan in 2017, contacting his parents became exceptionally difficult. He said that parents, relatives, and friends within China had successively deleted his WeChat account, and WeChat was almost the only channel for him to contact his family. The horror of Xinjiang lies not only in one person being taken away, but more so in a family being forced to learn silence, disconnection, and self-deletion.
Since around 2017, Xinjiang has continued to strengthen control over Turkic Muslim groups such as Uyghurs and Kazakhs. The 2022 human rights assessment report by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights pointed out that under the "counter-terrorism" and "de-extremization" policies in Xinjiang, many families were separated because relatives were arbitrarily deprived of their liberty and their whereabouts were unknown. The case of Zhens Reshan once again shows that the CCP's so-called "de-extremization" is no longer targeted at specific behaviors, but at identity, language, faith, culture, and memory itself.