Muheyati was arrested around mid-March 2018 and sent to an internment camp together with his mother, Weilina Muhatai, his younger brother Parisati Haliyoula and his father, Haliyoula Tuerxun. Muheyati’s eldest brother, now living in Kazakhstan and interviewed by Amnesty International, believes that their detention was linked to the activism of his father who exposed the death of an ethnic Kazakh in an internment camp in Xinjiang. In December 2020, Muheyati’s eldest brother was told by a trusted source that his father had died in detention, probably because of torture or ill-treatment he endured while detained. According to Muheyati’s eldest brother, Muheyati was also subjected to ill-treatment while held in an internment camp between 2018 and early 2019.

Muheyati, his younger brother Parisati and his mother were released in early 2019 and have been closely monitored by the authorities since then. The last time Muheyati’s eldest brother was able to talk with them was in August 2020, when the authorities allowed a video call. After that call, Muheyati, his mother and his younger brother went missing.