China’s persecution of Uyghurs extends to those it once favoured

Rahile Dawut was once something of an establishment figure in China. The 57-year-old anthropologist from the Uyghur ethnic group was a member of the Communist Party. The state funded some of her work at the University of Xinjiang, the premier college in the region, where she was a professor and founder of a research centre studying ethnic minorities. She was awarded prizes by the Ministry of Culture, had met President Jiang Zemin in 2000 and was featured on the cover of a state-supported magazine in Xinjiang, the Uyghur heartland. But in December 2017, after telling a relative that she had to travel to Beijing, Ms Dawut (pictured) disappeared.