A Conference on Uyghur crisis and professor Ilham Tohti
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Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize awarded to Ilham Tohti
The Council of Europe has awarded its prestigious annual human rights award to imprisoned Uighur activist Ilham Tohti. It has also jointly honored the Balkan-based Youth Initiative for Human Rights. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on Monday jointly awarded its human rights prize to Chinese Uighur public intellectual Ilham Tohti and the Balkan-based Youth Initiative for Human Rights (YIHR). “In honoring them, we also send a message of hope to the millions of people they represent and for whom they work: human rights have no frontiers,” PACE president Liliane Maury Pasquier said during a prize-giving ceremony. PACE✔@PACE_News · Sep 30, 2019Replying to @PACE_News Enver Can of the Ilham Tohti Initiative receives the Prize on behalf of Mr Tohti, who has been in prison in China since 2014: “Today’s prize honours one person, but it also recognises a whole population in giving the entire #Uyghur people a voice.” PACE✔@PACE_News Ivan Djuric receives the #HavelPrize on behalf of @YIHR_Croatia @YIHRSerbia @YIHRKosovo @YIHRBiH and http://yihr.me http://yihr.org with pride, but warns: “Don’t play deaf to the sound of war drums from the Balkans… we’re not strangers, we’re Europeans.” 2811:04 AM – Sep 30, 2019Twitter Ads info and privacySee PACE’s other Tweets The Vaclav Havel Human Rights Award — named after the famed former playwright, president of the Czech Republic and democracy activist — carries a prize of €60,000 ($65,500). Enver Can of the Ilham Tohti Initiative, who represented Tohti at the event, vowed to continue efforts to free the Uighur economist, who was jailed for life in 2014 by a Chinese court on charges of inciting separatism. The YIHR in the Balkans, founded in 2003, describes itself as a group campaigning for justice, equality, democracy and peace; it places particular importance on building cooperation between young activists from different countries and communities in the Balkans. “Don’t play deaf to the […]
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China slams European Parliament for award to ‘terrorist’ Ilham Tohti
BEIJING (AFP) – China hit out at the European Parliament on Friday (Oct 25) for awarding a key human rights prize to jailed Uighur intellectual Ilham Tohti, saying that he is a “terrorist”. Tohti – a former economics professor sentenced to life imprisonment in 2014 by Beijing – was announced as the winner of the Sakharov Prize on Thursday. But Foreign Ministry spokesman Hua Chunying said at a press briefing on Friday that giving the award to Tohti was “problematic”. “I hope that Europe can respect China’s internal affairs and judicial sovereignty, and avoid celebrating a terrorist,” she said. The outspoken Tohti was convicted for “separatism” in a trial that provoked outcry from foreign governments and human rights organisations. European Parliament head David Sassoli urged Beijing to immediately release Tohti as he announced the award, calling him a “voice of moderation and reconciliation”. “I don’t know what exactly this prize is, what its importance, value or impact are,” said Hua. “But what I know is Ilham Tohti is a criminal convicted by Chinese courts.” Tohti, who turned 50 on Friday, was also awarded the top Vaclav Havel award in September for “giving the entire Uighur people a voice”. He has also been nominated by US lawmakers for the Nobel Peace Prize, amid growing scrutiny of China’s treatment of the Uighurs. Rights groups and experts say more than one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic minorities have been rounded up in internment camps in the north-west region of Xinjiang. China initially denied the existence of the camps, but now says they are “vocational training schools” necessary to combat terrorism. Before his arrest in January 2014, Tohti founded and ran the UighurOnline website, which wrote in Uighur and Chinese about social issues. He gained prominence as a moderate voice drawing attention […]