Young Chinese Scholar Missing Since 2018 After Conducting Research on Uyghur Culture
Feng Siyu, a young scholar from Zhejiang, was once admitted to 17 of the world’s top universities and celebrated in Chinese media as an exceptionally gifted student. She dedicated herself to the study of Asian cultures, mastering both English and Uyghur, and was deeply committed to research on Uyghur cultural traditions. Her rare cross-cultural academic background earned her wide recognition within the field of Uyghur studies. Yet since her arrest in 2018, this promising young scholar has vanished without a trace.
From the Ivory Tower to the Field
After graduating from Hangzhou Foreign Languages School in 2012, Feng Siyu received offers of admission from 17 of the world’s leading universities, including the University of Chicago, UC Berkeley, and Northwestern University. She ultimately chose to complete a bachelor’s degree in history at Amherst College in Massachusetts, then to study at SOAS University of London.
Alongside her pursuit of academic excellence, Feng was also deeply committed to social engagement. In the summer of 2013, she traveled to Yushan County, Jiangxi Province, to teach as a volunteer. There, she introduced local children to poetry and music, guiding them through the works of Gu Cheng and classics such as Returning to Live in the Countryside. Before she left, she bought them books like Charlotte’s Web and Exploring the Earth to inspire their learning and imagination.
Feng Siyu’s passion for Uyghur culture was unmistakable. She enrolled in a summer program at the University of Wisconsin to study Uyghur under Professor Gulnisa Nazarova, eventually achieving fluency. In 2017, her senior thesis—From Istanbul to Kashgar: Ahmed Kemal’s Educational Mission in Chinese Turkestan, 1885–1917—won Amherst College’s Alfred F. Havighurst Prize, awarded for outstanding work in the humanities.
That same year, she joined the Folklore Research Center at Xinjiang University, where she conducted in-depth fieldwork on Uyghur women’s folk culture. Her ambition was clear: she planned to pursue a doctorate in history at Harvard University under the supervision of renowned scholar Mark Elliott.
While pursuing her research in Asian culture and history, Feng Siyu also paid close attention to China’s political realities. In 2014, she shared on Facebook a South China Morning Post article marking the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. She could not have imagined then that the persecution once unleashed on students in 1989 would one day be replayed against her. For this young scholar, an academic dream was cut brutally short.
Political persecution disguised as absurd criminal charges
According to internal police documents from Urumqi obtained by The Intercept, authorities began investigating Feng Siyu in October 2017 after claiming her OnePlus phone contained “foreign software.” The absurdity of the charge was evident even in the police report itself, which acknowledged that the application in question was a factory-installed program, with no evidence that Feng had ever used it.
Nevertheless, in 2018 the young scholar was arrested and vanished without a trace. It is believed she was sentenced to 15 years in prison, and may since have been transferred from a Xinjiang facility to a prison in her home province of Zhejiang.
Yet anthropologist Rune Steenberg argues that the real reason for Feng Siyu’s arrest likely lies in her academic work. In February 2017, Feng had joined the Folklore Research Center at Xinjiang University, working alongside Rahile Dawut, the internationally renowned ethnographer of Uyghur culture. Dawut, the center’s founder, had devoted her career to studying Uyghur folklore, religious traditions, and oral literature. But in December 2017, she too disappeared, and in 2018 was secretly sentenced to life in prison.
As Dawut’s collaborator and a young scholar focused on Uyghur cultural research, Feng Siyu almost certainly fell victim for the same reason—another casualty of the authorities’ assault on Uyghur cultural studies. The so-called investigation into her phone software was nothing more than a flimsy pretext to cloak political persecution. Feng Siyu’s case illustrates the Chinese Communist Party’s deep fear of academic inquiry and cultural exchange in Xinjiang: any effort to understand, document, or preserve Uyghur culture is treated as a threat to state security.
Human Rights in China calls on the Chinese government to unconditionally release Feng Siyu and to disclose the true reasons and legal grounds for her detention.
中国年轻学者冯斯瑜，因维吾尔文化研究失踪至今
她是来自浙江的年轻学者，曾获全球17所顶尖大学录取，被中国媒体誉为极 具天赋的优秀少女。她专注于亚洲文化研究，精通英文和维吾尔语，并对维 吾尔民族文化深切关注，加上其跨文化的独特学术背景，使她在维吾尔学术 界享有盛誉。然而自2018年被捕后，这位前途无量的青年学者彻底音讯全 无。
从象牙塔到田野的学术之路
2012年，冯斯瑜自杭州外国语学校毕业后，获得包括芝加哥大学、加州大学 伯克利分校、西北大学在内的17所国际顶尖院校录取通知。她最终选择在马 萨诸塞州阿默斯特学院完成历史学学士学位，2016年赴伦敦大学亚非学院继 续深造。
在追求学术卓越的同时，冯斯瑜始终保持社会关怀精神，2013年利用暑期赴 江西玉山县支教，教授当地儿童诗歌与音乐，为他们讲解顾城诗作和《归园田 居》等经典文学。离别时，还为孩子们购买了《夏洛特的网》、《探索地球》等启 蒙读物。
冯斯瑜对维吾尔文化研究展现出非凡的学术热忱，专程前往威斯康星大学暑 期项目跟随古尔尼萨·纳扎罗娃教授(Gulnisa Nazarova)学维吾尔语，最终达 到流利应用水平。2017年，她凭借本科荣誉论文《从伊斯坦布尔到喀什:艾哈 迈德-凯末尔对中国突厥斯坦的教育使命，1885-1917年》荣获阿默斯特学院 Alfred F. Havighurst历史奖，该奖项专门表彰卓越的人文学术研究成果。同年 ，她前往新疆大学民俗研究中心工作，致力于维吾尔女性民俗文化的深度田
野调研，并计划进入哈佛大学跟随马克·埃利奥特(Mark Elliott)攻读历史系博 士学位。
在做亚洲文化与历史学术研究时，冯斯瑜也关注着中国的政治议题，2014年 ，她在脸书上转发南华早报关于六四事件二十五周年的纪念报道。只是她未 曾想到，1989年中共对学生的迫害会在她身上重演，这位年轻学者的学术梦 想，就此戛然而止。
荒谬指控掩盖下的政治迫害
根据《The Intercept》获得的乌鲁木齐警方内部情报显示，2017年10月，警方 以冯斯瑜的OnePlus手机上装有"外国软件"而对其进行调查。但荒谬的是， 警方情报同时指出，这个软件是该智能手机自带的预装程序，并未有证据表 明冯斯瑜曾使用过，但这名年轻学者依然于2018年被捕，随后消失得无影无 踪。据信冯斯瑜于2018年被判处15年有期徒刑，目前可能已从新疆监狱转移 到浙江本省监狱。
然而，人类学家鲁恩·斯滕贝格(Rune Steenberg)认为，冯斯瑜被捕的真实原 因更可能与其学术工作相关。2017年2月，冯斯瑜前往新疆大学民俗研究中 心，与国际知名维吾尔民族志学者热依拉·达吾提(Rahile Dawut)合作。达吾 提是该中心创始人，长期致力于维吾尔文化研究，包括民间故事、宗教文化 和口头文学等。然而，这位杰出学者于2017年12月失踪，2018年被秘密判处 无期徒刑。冯斯瑜作为达吾提的合作伙伴和维吾尔文化研究者，很可能因此受害，成为当局打压维吾尔文化研究的又一实证。对冯斯瑜手机软件的调查 ，不过是为政治迫害披上的荒谬外衣。
冯斯瑜遭遇诠释了中共对新疆地区学术研究和文化交流的恐惧。任何试图了 解、记录或传承维吾尔文化的努力，都被视为对国家安全的威胁。中国人权 与国际人权组织联合敦促中共当局无条件释放冯斯瑜，并公开其被拘押的真 实原因与法律依据。