Zhanatbek Beksultan (加纳提别克·别克苏力旦), born November 13, 1988, is a Kazakh man from Qapqal Xibe Autonomous County in Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang. Rights-monitoring sources describe him as a former farmer and herder with the 7th Company of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps’ 67th Regiment who later worked as a taxi driver.
Detention and sentence
According to the Rights Defense Network Information Center, Beksultan attended a January 31, 2018 birthday gathering organized by a local imam. Police reportedly detained him and his wife at their home on February 6, 2018. The same source says 41 people connected with the gathering were detained and that 17 men later received lengthy prison terms.
Rights Defense Network reports that Beksultan was sentenced to 15 years on charges translated as “promoting extremism” and “gathering a crowd to disrupt social order,” with an expected sentence end date of February 5, 2033. The Prisoners of Conscience Data project independently lists a 15-year sentence. Researcher Gene Bunin’s Xinjiang documentation also lists Zhanatbek Beksultan with a 15-year term and cites an incarceration notice.
As of August 2026, Rights Defense Network reported that he was serving the sentence at Gaoquan Prison of the Seventh Division of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. FreeChina.live treats this as a source-attributed current-status report rather than independently verified prison-location information.
Identity and source note
The Chinese rendering used by the cited rights sources is 加纳提别克·别克苏力旦; those sources identify his Kazakh name as Zhanatbek Beksultan. Transliteration variants may appear in English-language databases.
Sources
- Rights Defense Network / 权利运动, August 21, 2026
- Prisoners of Conscience Data, record 4715
- Gene Bunin, “The Elephant in the XUAR: III,” April 19, 2021
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