Uyghur Figures – Fathuddin Makhdum

Uyghur Figures – 17

Fathuddin Makhdum was born in 1926 in Osh, current-day Kyrgyzstan. In the autumn of 1931, his father moved with the family to Hotan, East Turkistan. Fathuddin received his primary education at home before enrolling at the school of Musa Damolla in the Id-kah neighborhood of Hotan. After mastering Arabic and Persian, he went on to learn Russian.

During the rule of Sheng Shicai (after 1933), he studied in a teacher-training program in Hotan. Upon completing the program, he worked for one year at the Uyghur Association in Hotan and then served as Secretary-General of the Uyghur Association in Karghilik County from 1943 to 1945. He later returned to Hotan and worked at a veterinary hospital until the outbreak of the Tashqurghan Revolution.

Following the signing of the peace agreement, he became editor of the Hotan newspaper. However, after the agreement was violated, he was arrested by the Kuomintang authorities in Hotan in 1947 as part of a large-scale campaign in which more than 100 scholars and intellectuals were abducted and accused under fabricated charges, including membership in the Communist Party.

In April 1949, he was released from prison by a civil servant on the condition that he leave Hotan within ten days. He then traveled with his family including his mother and brother to Ürümqi, where he worked for Erk newspaper, published by Isa Yusuf Alptekin and Muhammad Emin Bughra.

In August 1949, a group including Muhammad Emin Bughra, Isa Yusuf Alptekin, and others departed in an attempt to emigrate abroad. Fathuddin followed them together with his mother and brother. They reached the border by the end of the month but were forced to return to Hotan after the border was closed.

In 1950, Fathuddin worked in handicrafts in Hotan for several months. Later that year, the communist government arrested him on charges of “attempting to flee to a foreign country.” He was released in 1953.

In 1954, he participated in planning the uprising led by Abdulhamid Damolla and became a prominent figure in the uprising against the Chinese communist regime. After the uprising failed, he escaped and hid in the home of a resident in Hotan for eighteen days before being arrested in the spring of 1955. In the summer of 1957, at approximately 31 years of age, he was sentenced to death and executed.

Written by: N. Hussein, translated into English by the Center for Uyghur Studies (CUS).