page_title: Khoja Niyaz
section_title: Death
hierarchical_section_title: Khoja Niyaz / Death
caption_attribution_description: English: Hoja-Niyaz at the Second Congress of People’s Representatives, Ürümchi, April 1935.
context_page_description: Khoja Niyaz, also Khoja Niyaz Haji, was a Uyghur independence movement leader who led several rebellions in Xinjiang against the Kumul Khanate, the Chinese governor Jin Shuren and later the Hui warlord Ma Chung-ying. He is best remembered as the first and only president of the short-lived Islamic Republic of Eastern Turkestan from November 1933 until the republic's defeat in 1934.
context_section_description: There are contradictory statements about his death. Though appointed by Sheng Shicai as the Vice-Chairman of the Xinjiang Government and "Civil Governor for life" of the Xinjiang province in 1934, Hoya Niyaz actually was separated from his troops and held in Urumqi as a puppet under close supervising of Soviet agents. He was denied his request to meet Stalin in person and to settle the Xinjiang issue in accordance with the Right of nations to self-determination, which was officially supported by the USSR in its revolutionary doctrine. In April 1937, following the Rebellion of the 6th Uyghur Division under general Mahmut Muhiti against the Provincial Government at Kashgar, Hoja Niyaz was arrested in Urumqi and allegedly executed in 1938. The death penalty was approved by Moscow, Hoja Niyaz and his 120 followers were labeled as counter-revolutionary "Trotskysts" and "Japanese agents." Hola Niyaz rejected all accusations against him saying that they were all fabricated by Sheng Shicai. Being sentencing to the death penalty, Hoja Niyaz said in his last words: This death sentence is not new for me. Actually, I have died in a day when I came to Urumchi (he meant his departure from Aksu in late 1934 after negotiations with Soviet Consul-General in Urumchi Garegin Apresov, who urged him to come to Urumchi and accept the offer from Sheng Shicai to become a Vice-Chairman of Xinjiang Government, Commander of 6th Uyghur Division Mahmut Muhiti was against this move, considering that it will affect badly uyghur cause for independence), I will die, but my People will continue to live...Revolution will not be terminated. Other versions speculate he was held alive in prison as far as summer 1943, when he was executed on the orders of Chiang Kai-shek, who restored Kuomintang control over Xinjiang in 1943 following Sheng Shicai expelling Soviet military personnel and advisers from the province.
  The name Niyas was used for a son of Yulbars Khan.
caption: Hoja-Niyaz at the Second Congress of People's Representatives, Ürümchi, April 1935
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