A Conference on Uyghur crisis and professor Ilham Tohti
Jewher Ilham
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Uyghur Scholar Ilham Tohti’s Daughter Calls For His Release on Sixth Anniversary of His Jailing
RFA 2020-09-23 The daughter of jailed Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti called on Wednesday for his immediate release from a Chinese prison, speaking on the sixth anniversary of his sentencing to a life term in prison for “separatism” for his advocacy for greater rights for the Uyghur people. Tohti, a former professor of economics at the Central University for Nationalities in Beijing, was sentenced by the Urumqi Intermediate People’s Court in northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) on Sept. 23, 2014, despite having worked for more than two decades to foster dialogue and understanding between Uyghurs and Han Chinese. “For the past six years, I’ve tried my best—everything I can—to fight for his release. [Now], we need to see what we can all do together to get my father out,” Tohti’s daughter Jewher Ilham said, speaking in a panel discussion hosted by the Ilham Tohti Institute. “We need to find some sort of way to ask the [Chinese] government to review my father’s case, and to ask for a change in his verdict. The best circumstance would be releasing my father immediately,” she said. Ilham said she recently learned that Chinese authorities had played a video for students at Tohti’s former university presenting “evidence” that he was guilty of the offenses for which he was jailed. That video has not yet been publicly released, though, Ilham said, and may have been edited to “brainwash” students to believe that Tohti is now where he deserves to be. “If that so-called evidence is not fabricated, and not just used for brainwashing, I would like to be ‘brainwashed’ too, so I don’t have to have these sleepless nights and figure out why my innocent father is still locked up after six years,” Ilham said.‘World is waking up’ Also speaking on the panel, […]
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Jailed Uyghur Scholar Ilham Tohti Receives Freedom House’s ‘Freedom Award’
RFA Uyghur news 2019.05.09 Jailed Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti was honored on Wednesday at a ceremony in Washington D.C., where he was given the Freedom Award in absentia by the democracy watchdog group Freedom House. Accepting the award on her father’s behalf at the May 8 gathering at Washington’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Tohti’s daughter Jewher Tohti said that she wished her father could have been present to accept his award in person. “[And] I wish that this recognition were unnecessary,” Jewher Tohti said, “because that would mean that the Uyghur people were free.” Ilham Tohti is someone who sees political and cultural oppression as a problem to be fixed, Jewher Tohti said, adding that China’s treatment of the Uyghur ethnic minority in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region, the Uyghurs’ historic homeland, “was always causing bigger societal damage.” “Even before the horrendous crackdown, the camps, the torture of innocent people, China was creating larger, longer-term problems between groups of people,” she said. “When people are treated and labeled as separate or different, as wrong or bad, human connection cannot happen.” In remarks introducing the granting of the award, U.S. Senator from Colorado Cory Gardner said that Ilham Tohti knew that he would someday be jailed for “telling the story of his community, the Uyghurs.” “He expected that his peaceful calls for connection and understanding between Uyghurs and Han Chinese would need to be silenced,” Gardner said. “Like other historic champions of freedom and human rights, Ilham Tohti embodies a fearlessness to which we all aspire,” Gardner said, adding, “To put the cause of human liberty ahead of your own life is the ultimate act of courage,” Gardner said. Convicted of ‘separatism’ An outspoken economics professor who regularly highlighted the religious and cultural persecution of the mostly Muslim Uyghur ethnic minority in northwest China’s […]
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Ilham Tohti: 2014 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award Winner
PEN America 10 May 2014 Long harassed by Chinese authorities for his outspoken views on the rights of China’s Muslim Uyghur minority, 44-year old Tohti—a member of the Uyghur PEN Center—was arrested by authorities at his home in Beijing on January 15, 2014. The arrest occurred in front of Tohti’s two youngest children, aged 4 and 7, who were forced to sit silently and watch as their home was ransacked and their father taken away. An official arrest warrant and notification of the charges presented to Tohti’s wife on February 25 indicate Tohti has been charged with “separatism” and is being held incommunicado at a detention center thousands of miles from Beijing in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Even Tohti’s lawyer has no access to his client. Tohti stands accused of recruiting followers through his now-banned website Uyghur Online. The charge of “separatism” carries a penalty of 10 years to life imprisonment, or even the death penalty in extreme cases. “Tohti represents a new generation of endangered writers who use the web and social media to fight oppression and broadcast to concerned parties around the globe,” said PEN American Center President Peter Godwin. “We hope this honor helps awaken Chinese authorities to the injustice being perpetrated and galvanizes the worldwide campaign to demand Tohti’s freedom.” Music by: Ted Reichman: http://www.tedreichman.com/ Ilan Isakov: http://ilanisakov.bandcamp.com/ Source: PEN Americahttps://youtu.be/gm6YLWrnKPw
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Ilham Thoti: Martin Ennals Award Ceremony 2016
The finalists for the Martin Ennals Award 2016 were Razan Zaitouneh (Syria), Ilham Tohti (China) and Zone 9 Bloggers. A jury of 10 of the world’s leading human rights NGOs selected Ilham Tohti as the 2016 Laureate.
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