Person profile: Feng Siyu / 冯斯瑜
**Media Profile & Archive — Feng Siyu / 冯斯瑜**
This archive collects the public reporting on the case associated with the roster entry “Feng Siyu”, a young scholar from Zhejiang Province known for research on Uyghur culture. It documents the sources, their provenance, and known conflicts or gaps.
**Source chronology**
– **2025-08 (circa August 2025)** — Human Rights in China (news.hrichina.org): “Young Chinese Scholar Missing Since 2018 After Conducting Research on Uyghur Culture.” The foundational report: bilingual (English/Chinese), confirms the Chinese name 冯斯瑜； documents her academic record (Hangzhou Foreign Languages School 2012; 17 university admissions; Amherst College history degree; SOAS London; Wisconsin summer Uyghur program under Gulnisa Nazarova; 2017 Havighurst Prize; Xinjiang University Folklore Research Center from February 2017; planned Harvard PhD under Mark Elliott); cites Urumqi internal police documents obtained by The Intercept for the October 2017 “foreign software” investigation; reports the 2018 arrest and disappearance; states she is believed sentenced to 15 years (citing the Rights Defense Network prisoner database) and possibly transferred to Zhejiang; cites anthropologist Rune Steenberg on the academic-work motive and notes collaborator Rahile Dawut’s December 2017 disappearance and secret life sentence in 2018; calls for unconditional release. URL: http://news.hrichina.org/p/young-chinese-scholar-missing-since
– **2025-08-27** — ANI (wire): “Chinese scholar Feng Siyu reportedly jailed over Uyghur research, says Human Rights in China.” Wire report summarizing the HRIC findings: 17 admissions, Amherst, SOAS, 2014 Facebook post, late-2017 investigation over the phone’s factory-installed app, 2018 arrest, believed 15-year sentence, possible transfer to Zhejiang. Syndicated across multiple outlets (see duplicates below). Representative copy: https://www.newspointapp.com/english/world/chinese-scholar-feng-siyu-reportedly-jailed-over-uyghur-research-says-human-rights-in-china-aninews/articleshow/145048203127c8b79b1baad5afc9fc3d42e5dcf3
– **2025-08-27** — Uygur News: “Chinese scholar reportedly jailed over Uyghur research.” Rewrite of the HRIC/ANI material, attributed to HRIC throughout; no independent reporting. URL: https://www.uygurnews.com/chinese-scholar-reportedly-jailed-over-uyghur-research/
– **2025-09-23** — Reuters: “China detains student for Tibet activism, rights group says.” Primarily about the detention of Zhang Yadi (Tara); notes as context that “Feng Siyu, a Han Chinese researcher of Uyghur culture, was detained in 2018 and later sentenced to 15 years in prison for separatism, NGO Human Rights in China said earlier this year.” URL: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-detains-student-tibet-activism-rights-group-says-2025-09-23/
**Provenance and grading**
– The case rests on **one primary reporting lineage: the HRIC report (August 2025)**. The ANI wire and Uygur News pieces both derive from HRIC’s findings and are NOT independent corroboration. Reuters independently confirms only the outline (2018 detention, believed 15-year sentence) while attributing the detail to HRIC.
– No second independent investigative lineage located (no RFA, ChinaAid, Amnesty, HRW, or CECC case record found in bounded search).
– **No official sources located:** no court judgment text, no indictment, no detention notice, no PRC state-media acknowledgment, no CECC Political Prisoner Database record.
– The Urumqi police documents are reported secondhand via The Intercept (as cited by HRIC); the underlying Intercept material was not opened in this pass.
– The 15-year sentence is consistently framed as a belief/attribution (“it is believed she was sentenced”), never as a confirmed judgment.
**Conflicts and anomalies**
– The exact charge is described by Reuters as “separatism”; HRIC’s own report does not name a specific Criminal Law article — the precise conviction charge is unconfirmed and is not published as fact.
– HRIC dates the believed sentencing to 2018; no sentencing date, court, or case number is given in any source.
– The possible transfer from Xinjiang to Zhejiang is HRIC’s belief (“may since have been transferred”), not confirmed.
– Issue 131 roster caveat: the roster demonstrably contains stale “current custody” entries (a person released in 2019 is still listed). The roster’s classification of “Feng Siyu” as in custody as of August 31, 2026 is therefore carried as a **source claim**, not an independently verified fact.
**Archive notes / gaps**
– No post-2025 updates located: prison facility, health, appeal status — all unresolved.
– No consular, embassy, U.S. State Department, CECC, or UN statement located in bounded search; no PRC official response located.
– The Intercept’s underlying Urumqi police-files material and the Weiquanwang blog entry HRIC cites for the sentence were referenced but not opened in this pass — flagged for click-verification at publish time.
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