A Conference on Uyghur crisis and professor Ilham Tohti
Ilham Tohti Case
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‘We Shouldn’t Allow Ilham Tohti to Become a Second Liu Xiaobo’
RFA Uyghur 2018-07-27 Hu Jia, a Chinese human rights activist and critic of the Communist Party of China, has closely followed the case of Ilham Tohti, an outspoken economics professor who regularly highlighted the religious and cultural persecution of the mostly Muslim Uyghur ethnic minority. Tohti was sentenced to life in prison for promoting ethnic separatism on Sept. 23, 2014 following a two-day show trial and is serving his sentence in No.1 Prison in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, where the human rights situation continues to deteriorate. Hu, himself a former political prisoner and winner of the 2008 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, has often served as a conduit for information from Tohti’s family to the outside world. He spoke to Mihray Abdilim of RFA’s Uyghur Service about his fears that Tohti could suffer the fate of 2010 Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo, who died of liver cancer last year in a Chinese prison, where his treatment was late and inadequate. For two years, Ilham hasn’t seen his wife and children. The political situation in the Uyghur region is so terrible that his wife Guzelnur decided not to go back there this year. For a long time, the Chinese government has been implementing a policy called ‘Serve Prison Sentence elsewhere’ mainly targeting the high-profile political prisoners. Because Beijing is the political capital where the embassies of all the democratic countries are located, and the main offices of the UN are also based here. As most political events take place in Beijing, most people who are interested in politics gather here as well. Petitioners from all over the country also come here, and we can say that this is where people who were persecuted in past gather as well. From the Chinese authorities’ point of view, Beijing’s stability is their top priority. That […]
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Enver Can on behalf of I. Tohti, co-winner of the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize
Enver Can explains the fight of the renowned Uyghur public intellectual in China, co-winner of 2019 Václav Havel Prize. Mr Can, member of the Ilham Tohti Initiative, explains that the 2019 co-winner has worked for over 20 years to improve the situation of the Uyghur minority and to foster inter-ethnic dialogue and understanding in China. In September 2014, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Relevat news article: 2019 Václav Havel Prize shared by Ilham Tohti and the Youth Initiative for Human Rights
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Ilham Tohti: Uighur activist’s daughter fears for his life
BBC News 18 December 2019 The daughter of Ilham Tohti, a Uighur intellectual who has been imprisoned in China, has said she does not know if her father is alive. Jewher Ilham made the remark after accepting a top European human rights prize on behalf of her father. Ilham Tohti was jailed for life on separatism charges in 2014. China has provoked an international outcry its treatment of Uighurs, an indigenous Muslim minority, in the western Xinjiang region. Mr Tohti, an economics scholar, is known for his research on relations between the Uighur and Han people. Ozil removed from PES 2020 in China China’s hidden camps Prosecutors at his trial in 2014 alleged he was engaging in separatist activities, including promoting independence for Xinjiang on his website, Uighur Online. The website aimed to educate both Chinese and Uighur speakers about social issues. He denied being a separatist, and was seen by many as a moderate voice. Ms Ilham says she has not seen her father since 2013 and has had no communication with him for two years. He was awarded the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought for promoting “dialogue and mutual understanding” between the Uighur and other Chinese people. Ms Ilham said her father had been labelled “a violent extremist, with a disease that needs to be cured and mind that needs to be washed”. “I am grateful for the opportunity to tell his story, because he cannot tell it himself,” said Ms Ilham, who received the award in the French city of Strasbourg next to a symbolic empty chair. “To be honest with you, I do not know where my father is. 2017 was the last time my family received word about him.” “Today should be a moment of joy to celebrate freedom of speech,” said […]
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Trump Meets Survivors of Religious Persecution, Jailed Uyghur Professor Ilham Tohti’s Daughter
US President Donald Trump meets with survivors of religious persecution in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, July 17, 2019. AFP U.S. President Donald Trump met with more than two dozen survivors of religious persecution on Wednesday, including the daughter of a jailed Uyghur professor in China, a Rohingya Muslim who fled state-sponsored violence in Myanmar, and Christians from North Korea, Myanmar and Vietnam. The unscheduled meeting saw Trump host 27 representatives of groups from 16 nations the White House said have suffered violations of religious freedom, including four people from China, and came as the U.S. State Department is hosting its second annual Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom in Washington from July 16-18. “With us today are men and women of many different religious traditions, from many different countries, but what you have in common is that each of you have suffered tremendously for your faith,” he said in welcoming the survivors, noting that they had collectively endured “harassment, threats, attacks, trials, imprisonment, and torture.” “Each of you has now become a witness to the importance of advancing religious liberty all around the world … If people are not free to practice their faith, then all of the freedoms are at risk and, frankly, freedoms don’t mean very much.” Among those Trump met on Wednesday was Jewher Tohti, the daughter of jailed Uyghur professor Ilham Tohti, who regularly highlighted the religious and cultural persecution of Uyghurs in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), but was charged with promoting ethnic separatism and handed a life sentence by a Chinese court on Sept. 23, 2014 following a two-day trial. Tohti told the president about the region’s network of internment camps, where authorities are believed to have detained up to 1.5 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities accused […]
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