Akber was taken away in May 2017 while he was working in his bakery shop and later sent to prison. Akber’s uncle, who Amnesty International interviewed from his current residence in France, only found out about Akber’s detention and his 17-year prison sentence in December 2017, when he was told about it by family members still living in Xinjiang. They also told him that Akber was able to send a letter to his wife from prison in September 2017 in which he asked her to take care of their children and not to worry about him. Akber’s uncle has lost connection with the family in Xinjiang since 2019 and has thus been unable to gather any further information on Akber’s situation. He believes Akber is being detained solely for being self-employed as this is considered “dangerous”, and for violating China’s birth control policy, despite having already paid a fine imposed by the Chinese authorities in 2015.