Ekpar Asat (艾克拜尔·艾赛提) is a Uyghur entrepreneur and philanthropist from Xinjiang who disappeared in April 2016, weeks after returning from a US State Department leadership program, and was later confirmed to have been sentenced to 15 years in prison following a secret trial. Amnesty International, which issued an urgent action on his case in May 2020, reports that he was convicted on charges of “inciting ethnic hatred and ethnic discrimination,” was tried in secret, and was denied access to a lawyer of his choice. His family learned of the sentence only in January 2020, when the Chinese Embassy in Washington answered an inquiry from US Senator Chris Coons.
Asat founded Bagdax, a Uyghur-language social media platform that grew into one of the most widely used online forums among Uyghurs, with more than 100,000 registered members at its peak. In February 2016 he traveled to the United States for three weeks as a participant in the State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program, meeting journalists and civic groups in Washington and five states and visiting his sister, then a law student at Harvard. Weeks after he returned home to Urumqi, he went missing. For nearly four years his family heard nothing about his whereabouts, condition, or the evidence against him.
According to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, which lists Asat in its religious-prisoners database, he was detained in April 2016 and the details of his charges and trial remain unclear. His sister, a Harvard-trained lawyer who campaigns for his release, has said he is serving his sentence in Aksu and that his health has deteriorated in custody; the Commission likewise notes reports of serious health decline. US officials have raised his case directly with Beijing: the State Department said in May 2020 that it was “closely tracking” the case and pressing China for information, while acknowledging it had been unable to independently verify his whereabouts. Senator Coons advocates for Asat through the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission’s Defending Freedoms Project.
Asat also appears in the August 31, 2026 in-custody roster of the Rights Defense Network’s monthly political-prisoner report (Issue 131), which places him in its “sentenced to 15 years” group under the transliterations Yikepa·Asate — “also translated as Aikebai’er·Aisaiti” — the roster’s own wording, matching the independently documented identity.
Sources: Amnesty International Urgent Action ASA 17/2314/2020 (May 13, 2020); US Commission on International Religious Freedom religious-prisoners database; Radio Free Asia reporting; Rights Defense Network Issue 131 (August 31, 2026). Whereabouts and condition beyond the dated records above are not independently confirmed.
View the Ekpar Asat Media Profile & Archive for the complete source record, the identification method, and what remains unverified.