Christian Attorney Blocked From Visiting Imprisoned Chinese House Church Leader

08/24/2012 China (China Aid Association)- In Urumqi, Xinjiang on August 12, 2012, an attorney from Beijing applied according to legal process to meet with Alimujiang Yimiti, the prominent Uighur Christian house church leader, who is serving a 15-year prison sentence in Prison No. 3 of Xinjiang.  The attorney was illegally and unreasonably refused access to Alimujiang by prison officials.

At about 10 a.m. on August 12, 2012, the Christian attorney hired by Alimujiang’s wife Gulinuer, came to the Prison Section of Xinjiang Autonomous Region Bureau of Prison Administration with application papers to meet with Alimujiang.  He found Section Chief He who is in charge of processing papers to meet with inmates who are serving their sentences in the prison.  The attorney presented his application papers for the meeting. 

Section Chief He disappeared into other offices for nearly an hour.  At about 11 o’clock, Section Chief He, with a booklet in his hand, said to the attorney: “According to the stipulation of the Ministry of Justice, when someone wants to meet with an inmate serving his or her time in prison in order to represent him or her in a lawsuit, he must get the approval and authorization from the inmate himself before he can meet with the inmate.  So you can go to Prison No. 3 of Xinjiang and apply there to meet with Alimujiang and you don’t need to come to our Bureau of Prison Administration.”

Then, the attorney and Gulinuer went to Prison No. 3 of Xinjiang and applied to meet with Alimujiang there.  When they arrived the prison administrators were in a meeting.  At about 12:00 noon as employees were leaving work for the morning, the administrators of the prison made arrangements for the attorney to see Section Chief Wang from the Prison Section in charge of inmates.  They brought the attorney to the office of the deputy director of the prison and pretended to discuss the matter for a while in front of the attorney and then said the attorney could meet with the inmate and that they would process the papers at 3:30 p.m. when they came back to work for the rest of the day(Source).