Ilshat Hassan Kokbore: Uyghurs Return to the Era of Secretly Listening to Songs

A personal memoir of Ilshat Hassan Kokbore: Uyghurs Return to the Era of Secretly Listening to Songs reflecting on the struggle to preserve Uyghur music, culture, and identity under decades of repression.

By Ilshat Hassan Kokbore

jan 27, 2026

Recently, according to reports by several international media based on leaked audio from the so-called “Uyghur Autonomous Region,” after the Chinese Communist Party successively banned and confiscated Uyghur books in East Turkestan, it has now begun to ban Uyghur songs as well. The list of banned Uyghur songs is very, very long. The banned songs include popular songs as well as traditional Uyghur folk songs.

In fact, the Uyghur language has already been banned; Uyghur culture and religious belief have been banned; books in the Uyghur language have all been prohibited and confiscated. Now, songs in the Uyghur language have again met the fate of being banned. For Uyghurs today, apart from the ethnic label “Uyghur,” any other distinctive attribute that highlights Uyghur national identity is being placed, one by one, onto the blacklist of a “rising” China.

When I was a child in Chuluqay, the Cultural Revolution was sweeping everything with full force. At that time I was about six or seven years old. I remember that on a bitterly cold winter night with heavy snow falling, my grandfather, grandmother, and I were about to go to sleep, when suddenly two uncles pushed the door open without knocking, carrying wind and snow as they came in.

The older uncle’s sheepskin coat was bulging, as if something were wrapped inside it. The two of them mysteriously took out what was hidden inside the coat. It was a box I had never seen before.

I asked my younger uncle what it was. He told me that this small box was a radio and that it could receive songs. I was very surprised—this thing could even receive songs!

My grandfather quickly took the old quilts and mattresses from the house and tightly covered the doors and windows. The older uncle connected the radio’s wire to the wire of the dim light bulb in the house. The box began to make creaking and crackling sounds. My uncle cautiously began to turn a knob to search. After a very, very long stretch of crackling and buzzing, suddenly a Uyghur man’s voice came from the box, as if he were broadcasting the news. The announcer’s voice was deep, powerful, and very serious, similar to the Uyghur broadcasts about new people and new events of the Cultural Revolution from the loudspeaker on the utility pole in front of our house.

My grandfather, grandmother, and the two uncles all listened quietly, seeming to be completely absorbed. I felt very bored, yawned, and was about to fall asleep.

Suddenly, my younger uncle’s excited voice came: “Songs—they’re going to play Uyghur songs!” My grandfather also echoed excitedly: “Yes, yes, it’s Pasha Ishan’s song (1), it’s ‘Mountain Stream’ (Tagh Suliri).” My grandfather, grandmother, and the two uncles immersed themselves in the intermittent singing, followed by “The Liberated Era” (Azat Zaman).

That singing was just like the folk songs sung for a thousand years on the streets of Ghulja: sometimes from far to near, from faint and hard-to-hear lyrics to clear and loud; sometimes from near to far, disappearing into the howling of the radio waves. My grandfather, grandmother, and the two uncles seemed to forget the winter cold and the fatigue of a whole day’s labor. They also seemed to forget that it was already very late, and they no longer had the initial cautiousness, letting Pasha Ishan’s singing rush out of the window and disappear into the howling wind and snow.

Several Uyghur songs sung passionately by Pasha Ishan in her unique soprano seemed to take my grandfather and grandmother back to their brief, happy youth, that independent and free era.

After Pasha Ishan finished singing, it was Abdurehim Ehmedi (2) who sang Lutpulla Mutellip’s (3) “Helplessness” (Meylimu) and several Kashgar folk songs. Abdurehim Ehmedi’s mournful interpretation of Mutellip’s tragic lyrics plunged my grandfather and grandmother into deep reflection. My younger uncle began to tell me the story of Lutpulla Mutellip that he had heard from my grandfather.

I slowly fell asleep amid the singing. I do not know how long my grandfather, grandmother, and uncles listened. When I woke up in the morning, I discovered that the box called a radio was no longer on the windowsill where it had been the night before. I asked my grandfather. He motioned for me to speak quietly. Then my grandfather said very seriously to me: “Do you still remember Uncle Tohtiyup, the village veterinarian?”
I said: “I remember, Grandpa. Wasn’t he taken away by the government?”
My grandfather nodded and said: “Yes. He was taken away because he secretly listened to the same songs we listened to last night.”

My grandfather continued: “Child, you must never let others know that our family has a radio, and even more you must not let others know that we listened to Pasha Ishan and Abdurehim Ehmedi’s songs. Those songs are all banned. If the commune militia finds out, the whole family might be taken away!” I was truly frightened. I did not want my grandfather and grandmother to be taken away, and even less did I want my two uncles to be taken away.

The radio stayed in our home for about a week. Every day, when it was very late, my grandfather, grandmother, and uncles would tightly seal the doors and windows and then turn on the radio to listen. Toward the news, they no longer had the interest they had at the beginning. They only wanted to listen to songs, and especially liked listening to Pasha Ishan’s Ili folk songs.

I knew that my grandfather and two uncles all liked to play the dutar and also liked to sing. It was said that when my grandfather was young, he was also a somewhat well-known dutar singer in Ghulja County. Of course, during the Cultural Revolution, he no longer played the dutar, nor did he sing. But on long winter nights when everything was quiet, he liked to teach me to memorize Uyghur folk lyrics and to tell me the origins of many Uyghur folk songs. He also told me the tragic story of Lutpulla.

Later, I returned to my parents in the Qumul  railway area to attend a Chinese-language school, and discovered that there was a tabletop radio in our home almost exactly the same as the one my uncles had brought that night. At first I did not dare touch that radio. Gradually, when my parents went to work, I began occasionally to turn it on secretly to listen.

After becoming familiar with that radio, I began to search the various shortwave stations, and I also found the Uyghur-language radio station that my grandfather and grandmother had secretly listened to. Later I learned that the station’s name was “Liberation Radio” (Azat Radiosi). It was a Uyghur-language station run by the Soviet Union to deal with China. Its daily programs were directed at East Turkestan, criticizing Mao’s China for persecuting Uyghurs and recounting the history of the Second East Turkestan Republic, interspersed with Uyghur-language songs sung by Uyghur singers who were banned in China, such as Pasha Ishan and Abdurehim Ehmedi.

At that time, I thought that both Pasha Ishan and Abdurehim Ehmedi were in Soviet Central Asia.

One day, when I was concentrating on listening to the news program of “Liberation Radio,” my father, who had come home early from work, suddenly walked into the room. I, who was listening attentively, did not have time at all to turn off the radio. My father angrily walked over and turned off the radio, then sternly warned me never again to secretly listen to radio stations banned by the government. With a grave expression, he told me that secretly listening to enemy stations would bring disaster to the whole family.

At that time, the Cultural Revolution had already entered its final stage of fading out. I was no longer an ignorant rural child from Quluqay. Therefore, I did not take my father’s warning seriously at all, and the disastrous consequences he warned of went in one ear and out the other.

Another Uyghur child in our housing compound, like me, had also come from the countryside to the Qumul railway area to attend a Chinese-language school. As my only Uyghur friend in this railway compound, we talked about everything. He told me that their family also often secretly listened to the Uyghur programs of “Liberation Radio.”

Later on, Mao died. Along with the loosening of the overall political situation in China, the various peoples of East Turkestan also began slowly and cautiously to revive their own cultures. At that time, those banned Uyghur folk songs began to appear at various private gatherings.

Only at this time did I learn that Pasha Ishan was still in East Turkestan. She had been overthrown during the Cultural Revolution because of some of the songs she sang, and her songs were banned from being sung and listened to. The clever Abdurehim Ehmedi, on the other hand, had fled East Turkestan early on.

Later still, with the downfall of the so-called “Gang of Four,” just like in other regions under CCP rule, in the Hami railway area, with the introduction of tape recorders, various Hong Kong and Taiwan pop music cassettes also began to circulate secretly. We youths who were entering adolescence began the era of secretly listening to the “decadent sounds” of Teresa Teng, Zhang Di, and others. Along with the beautiful melodies and deeply meaningful lyrics of these banned songs, I, a Uyghur who took the civil service exam in Chinese, began to explore my own life path, and the path of Uyghur national revival and freedom.

Looking back now, in that era full of false hopes and promises, as a hot-blooded youth I believed that the era of Uyghurs secretly listening to enemy stations had ended forever, and that the era of secretly listening to banned songs would never return.

However, reality was cruel. After enjoying a brief period of relaxation, by the late 1980s and early 1990s, East Turkestan was again gradually and forcibly dragged back by the CCP, step by step, into a terrifying era full of taboos, in which one could not read banned books, could not secretly listen to enemy stations, and could not secretly listen to banned songs.

Interestingly, in the mid-1990s, Shihezi established an economic radio station and openly recruited broadcasters through examinations. I passed all the tests with excellent results and was selected. In order to train us, Shihezi Radio sent us to Urumqi Economic Radio for one week of study.

During the training, I learned that the Urumqi Economic Radio on Nanchang Road had previously been the jamming center used by the Chinese government to interfere with the Soviet “Liberation Radio.” That is to say, when my grandfather, grandmother, and uncles, and tens of thousands of other Uyghurs, risked their lives to listen to those mournful and melodious Uyghur folk songs by listening to enemy stations, the annoying howling radio waves and crackling interference came from right here.

“Before the army leaves the gate, the general dies first.” The political situation of East Turkestan dream and the fate of the Uyghur people were just like my aborted broadcasting career at Shihezi Radio: before the drama could even begin, it had already entered its sorrowful ending.

Once again, together with most Uyghurs, I began the era of secretly listening to enemy stations. At this time, the enemy station was no longer the Soviet “Liberation Radio,” but the half-hour Uyghur broadcast of Radio Free Asia in the United States.

At first I bought a Hong Kong-made “Tecsun” radio costing more than ninety yuan, because someone told me that for listening to Radio Free Asia’s Uyghur broadcast, Tecsun radios had the best power. However, after a period of time, the Chinese government’s jamming of Radio Free Asia’s Uyghur-language news became stronger and more frequent. Often, halfway through a program, the announcer’s voice would be drowned out by noise.

In order to obtain real information about Uyghurs in time, I clenched my teeth and bought another Tecsun radio costing more than two hundred yuan. This radio could store different shortwave bands. When the shortwave band being listened to was drowned out by jamming, one could immediately switch to another shortwave band to listen. At that time, not only did my Han colleagues think it was not worth spending more than two hundred yuan on a radio, even my family thought I was wasting money.

But I thought it was worth it. I needed to know what was happening around me. I needed to know the truth. At that time, I no longer had much interest in songs; I only listened occasionally.

Later still, I fled my homeland into exile and came to the United States. News became free, but I lost my homeland. In a foreign land, the Uyghur language, Uyghur books, and Uyghur songs became indispensable homeland sounds and the classics that connect Uyghur roots. Fortunately, we Uyghurs abroad can at least listen to any Uyghur song we want, without worrying about bringing catastrophic disaster upon ourselves and our families.

But Uyghurs in the homeland are not as fortunate as we are. They may be arrested for downloading a banned song and even sentenced to prison. They may receive heavy sentences for singing banned songs, such as the young Uyghur singers Ablajan Awut Ayup (4)and Memetjan Abduqadir (5). Both were sentenced to heavy prison terms because of the songs they sang.

Moreover, even more unfortunately, whether Uyghur listeners or singers, no one knows at what time which song will suddenly be defined by the CCP authorities as a banned song.

In the long, dark winter nights, in the pitch-black, deathly silent nights without Uyghur singing and without Uyghur folk songs, under the layer-upon-layer network surveillance that is everywhere in East Turkestan, is there still any Uyghur secretly listening to Uyghur songs sung by banned Uyghur singers?

Notes:

1. Pasha Ishan: A renowned Uyghur folk singer and a household name among Uyghurs.
2. Abdurehim Ehmedi: A Uyghur musician who fled China to the Soviet Union.
   
3. Lutpulla Mutellip: A revolutionary Uyghur poet who was executed by the Kuomintang (KMT), China’s Nationalist Party.
4. Ablajan Awut Ayup: A imprisoned Uyghur pop singer
5. Memetjan Abduqadir: A imprisoned Uyghur musician and comedian who was s

This article was originally published in the Chinese media outlet Yibao. It has been translated into English and published in Uyghur Times by a Uyghur Times editor.

Ilshat Hassan Kokbore – Uyghur-American activist, spokesperson for the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) in China, political analyst, and former president of the Uyghur American Association.