Mahmud’s daughter, currently based in Turkey, has been unable to contact her father since April 2017. Mahmud was imprisoned for six years in 1997 for being a “separatist”, reportedly because he was once visited by a person who had “politically incorrect” opinions. In 2005, Mahmud was reportedly sentenced to two years in prison simply for tutoring Arabic and possessing Arabic books at home. In 2014, some policemen told him to go to the police station and subsequently arbitrarily detained him in a building along with many other Uyghurs for a year and half. Mahmud was then taken to Turpan, where he was again sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, reportedly because he answered a religious question about Wahhabism that police told him he had no authority to answer. According to a friend of Mahmud’s daughter, he has again been sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment, presumably in Kumul.
Mahmud’s wife, Zuhre Suphi, is also held in a detention facility.