{"id":840,"date":"2020-08-25T10:19:45","date_gmt":"2020-08-25T10:19:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ilhamtohtiinstitute.org\/?p=840"},"modified":"2020-08-15T11:14:33","modified_gmt":"2020-08-15T11:14:33","slug":"uyghur-economist-silenced-archive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ilhamtohtiinstitute.org\/?p=840","title":{"rendered":"Uyghur Economist Silenced [Archive]"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

RFA<\/a> 2009-03-26<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HONG KONG – Chinese authorities have warned a prominent economist from China\u2019s mainly Muslim Uyghur ethnic minority against speaking or writing publicly after he criticized China’s handling of his native Xinjiang region, friends and colleagues who have seen him in recent days said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ilham Tohti, an economics professor at the Central Nationalities University in Beijing, \u201cis working as usual, but he\u2019s being questioned by state security police after class every day,\u201d one friend who spoke on condition of anonymity said in an interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other friends, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said Tohti had been warned against speaking or writing in the media. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHis Web site has been shut down. We don\u2019t know how long this situation will continue,\u201d one friend said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a blog post dated March 12, Tohti himself wrote: “I apologize to my readers, but I\u2019m told I must be silent for some time. I am facing unbelievable threats and pressure now, but whatever happens, I call on my friends to stay firmly on course.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Officials contacted by telephone on Wednesday at the Central Nationalities University\u2019s economics, security, and propaganda departments declined to comment on Tohti or where he could be reached.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outspoken interview<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an interview earlier this month, Tohti sharply criticized Chinese policies in the northwestern Xinjiang region where he was born, saying that joblessness remains the single biggest problem and residents have suffered under the current governor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnemployment has existed in Xinjiang since the 1950s,\u201d Tohti told RFA\u2019s Uyghur service after returning home to Beijing from a weeklong academic exchange in France. \u201cNo matter what \u2026 I will still talk about the issue of unemployment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also sharply criticized the governor of Xinjiang, Nur Bekri, as incompetent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s unqualified \u2026 I don\u2019t know how he became governor of Xinjiang, and I don\u2019t recognize him as a qualified governor,\u201d Tohti said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe doesn\u2019t care about Uyghurs. He\u2019s always stressed the stability and security of Xinjiang and threatened Uyghurs. Xinjiang has developed, but the people are living in poverty, especially Uyghurs. Laws that should have been applied in the Uyghur Autonomous Region haven\u2019t been implemented.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tohti, who said he feared for his own safety, was speaking as the National People\u2019s Congress, China\u2019s annual session of parliament, met in Beijing, with Bekri warning of a \u201cmore fierce struggle\u201d against separatist unrest in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Repeated calls to Tohti\u2019s telephone numbers since his March 12 interview have rung unanswered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ethnic discrimination<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an interview with Radio France International in late February, Tohti urged the United States not to repatriate to China the 17 Uyghur men held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility but cleared of terrorism charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China has demanded the return of the 17 men, but human rights groups say they would likely face persecution in China, and the United States continues to seek a third country in which they can be resettled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tohti, who studied French immigration policy while he was in the country Feb. 22-March 1, also spoke out against racial discrimination in China against ethnic Uyghurs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Compared with France, racial discrimination is widespread in China, especially in job opportunities. Race discrimination is prohibited in both countries by law, but the differences between the two countries in implementing those laws is unbelievable,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China has accused Uyghur separatists of fomenting unrest in Xinjiang, particularly in the run-up to and during the Beijing Olympics in August last year when a wave of violence hit the vast desert region. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The violence prompted a crackdown in which the government says 1,295 people were detained for state security crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Web closures<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In mid-2008, Chinese authorities closed a Web site launched by Tohti in 2006 and aimed at promoting understanding between Han Chinese and ethnic Uyghurs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tohti said it was fellow Uyghurs who told authorities his Chinese-language Web site, Uyghur Online, had links to Uyghur \u201cextremists\u201d abroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, Tohti said his site\u2014which employed 67 people of 12 nationalities, all unpaid\u2014sometimes scored 1 million page views daily, with content published in Chinese and written by Uyghur, Han, Korean, Tibetan, and other contributors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The site was later reopened but has now been closed again for the sixth time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to his official biography, Tohti was born in Atush, Xinjiang, on Oct. 25, 1969. He graduated from the Northeast Normal University and the Economics School at the Central Nationalities University in Beijing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Original reporting in Uyghur <\/em>and translation <\/em>by Shohret Hoshur. Uyghur service director: Dolkun Kamberi. Written and  produced in English by Sarah Jackson-Han.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RFA 2009-03-26 HONG KONG – Chinese authorities have warned a prominent economist from China\u2019s mainly Muslim Uyghur ethnic minority against speaking or writing publicly after he criticized China’s handling of his native Xinjiang region, friends and colleagues who have seen him in recent days said. Ilham Tohti, an economics professor at the Central Nationalities University in Beijing, \u201cis working as usual, but he\u2019s being questioned by state security police after class every day,\u201d one friend who spoke on condition of anonymity said in an interview. Other friends, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said Tohti had been warned against speaking or writing in the media.  \u201cHis Web site has been shut down. We don\u2019t know how long this situation will continue,\u201d one friend said. In a blog post dated March 12, Tohti himself wrote: “I apologize to my readers, but I\u2019m told I must be silent for some time. I am facing unbelievable threats and pressure now, but whatever happens, I call on my friends to stay firmly on course.” Officials contacted by telephone on Wednesday at the Central Nationalities University\u2019s economics, security, and propaganda departments declined to comment on Tohti or where he could be reached. Outspoken interview In an interview earlier this month, Tohti sharply criticized Chinese policies in the northwestern Xinjiang region where he was born, saying that joblessness remains the single biggest problem and residents have suffered under the current governor. \u201cUnemployment has existed in Xinjiang since the 1950s,\u201d Tohti told RFA\u2019s Uyghur service after returning home to Beijing from a weeklong academic exchange in France. \u201cNo matter what \u2026 I will still talk about the issue of unemployment.\u201d He also sharply criticized the governor of Xinjiang, Nur Bekri, as incompetent. \u201cI think he\u2019s unqualified \u2026 I don\u2019t know how he became governor of Xinjiang, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":156,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120,6],"tags":[11,125],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ilhamtohtiinstitute.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ilhamtohtiinstitute.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ilhamtohtiinstitute.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ilhamtohtiinstitute.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ilhamtohtiinstitute.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=840"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.ilhamtohtiinstitute.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":841,"href":"http:\/\/www.ilhamtohtiinstitute.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840\/revisions\/841"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ilhamtohtiinstitute.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ilhamtohtiinstitute.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ilhamtohtiinstitute.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ilhamtohtiinstitute.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}