DHARAMSHALA, September 23: China has sentenced an ethnic Uighur professor and outspoken critic of China’s policies in Xinjiang to life imprisonment on Tuesday.
Ilham Tohi, an outspoken scholar who had advocated friendship between Han Chinese and Uighur was jailed in January this year for his criticism of China’s handling of alleged Uighur activists involved in a suicide car attack near Tiananmen Square.
Outside China, the economics professor at Beijing’s Minzu University is seen as a thoughtful, peaceful and moderate voice who has challenged China’s official narrative of several violent incidents in Xinjiang. The United States of America and the European Union had expressed concerns over his detention and appealed for his release earlier this year.
Amnesty International has called the verdict an “affront” to justice. “This shameful judgement has no basis in reality. Ilham Tohti worked to peacefully build bridges between ethnic communities and for that he has been punished through politically motivated charges,” said William Nee, China Researcher at Amnesty International.
Ilham was known as a moderate voice with ties to both the country’s Han Chinese establishment and the Muslim Uighur ethnic group that has long complained about treatment under the government. Ilham Tohti ran a website, Uighur Online, that highlighted issues affecting the ethnic group.
Tohti acquired a teaching position at Indiana University as a visiting scholar for a year in 2013. However, police detained him in February 2013 when he arrived at Beijing Capital International Airport to board his flight to the United States. His daughter, Jewher Ilham, who was accompanying him, did board the flight and is now studying at Indiana University.
A close friend of Ilham and a noted Beijing based Tibetan writer Woser in January visited Ilham’s home. She wrote that Ilham had told her that he had gone to the airport to receive his ailing mother in November and that the Chinese Police followed them and intentionally rammed their car from behind. Ilham had told Woser that the police even threatened to kill his whole family.
Tohti was jailed shortly after the July 2009 Ürümqi riots by the authorities because of his criticism of the Chinese government’s policies toward Uyghurs in Xinjiang. He was later released and then jailed again in January 2014. For his work in the face of adversity he was awarded the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award. His daughter received the award on his behalf.
