Global rights watchdog Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on China’s communist regime to release prominent Uyghur economist and government critic Ilham Tohti who was convicted and given a life sentence ten years ago.
The rights group termed the arrest and conviction of Tohti in 2014 on alleged charges of inciting separatism as “politically motivated,” in a statement released on Sept. 23.
The life sentence imposed on Tohti “marked the beginning of the Chinese government’s severe crackdown on the Uyghur region in 2014,” said Maya Wang, HRW’s associate China director.
“Tohti’s life imprisonment for his peaceful criticism and torturous solitary confinement reflects the Chinese government’s heightened repression and relentless abuses against Uyghurs,” Wang alleged.
HRW pointed out that Tohti’s family has not been allowed to visit him since early 2017 and he has been placed in solitary confinement since his arrest.
A top economist, Tohti, now 54, taught economics at the Central Nationalities University, now the Minzu University of China, in Beijing.
Chinese officials had accused him of using his lectures to incite violence and to trigger Uyghur separatism to overthrow the government.
He came under renewed state surveillance in 2006 when he established “Uyghurs Online,” a website to discuss Uyghur issues and problems and to promote his research work on relations between Uyghur and Han Chinese communities.
The government shut down the website in 2008 and sentenced the manager, Gheyret Niyaz, now 65, to 15 years in prison in 2010 for “endangering state security.”
Tohti was arrested and jailed following the riots in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in northwest China in 2009. He was accused of inciting violence for his criticism of the government’s repressive policies in Muslim-majority Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
However, he was released shortly due to strong international backlash.
Tohti repeatedly denied harboring separatism and said he seeks peaceful solutions to problems and autonomy for the Uyghur-dominated region within China.
He was arrested in January 2014 and sentenced to life imprisonment following a two-day trial, which triggered international condemnation.
During his detention, Tohti was accorded several international awards – the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award 2014, the Martin Ennals Award 2016, the Vaclav Havel Human Rights Price 2019, and the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought 2019.
The European Union had issued a statement calling for “the immediate and unconditional release of Tohti and other human rights defenders, lawyers, and intellectuals who are arbitrarily detained in China.”
Rights groups say six of Tohti’s students, Abduqeyum Ablimit, Perhat Halmurat, Akbar Imin, Mutellip Imin, Shohret Nijat, and Atikem Rozi, are believed to have been jailed.
Citing the Xinjiang Victims Database, HRW said that it is believed that they have been sentenced to between three-and-a-half and eight years in prison in 2014.
Chinese courts have sentenced several Uyghur intellectuals and activists in the past years, the group said.
Among those Gulshan Abbas, a retired physician, is serving 20 years in jail, Rahile Dawut, a prominent anthropologist was sentenced to life, and Yalqun Rozi, a writer and literary critic sentenced to 15 years.
Abduqadir Jalalidin, a literature professor has been sentenced to 13 years in jail and is among the thousands of people convicted without due process and jailed in Xinjiang, HRW said.
In May 2014, Chinese security forces launched a crackdown on Uyghurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang calling it “Strike Hard Campaign against Violent Terrorism.”
The brutal campaign led to mass and arbitrary detention, unjust prolonged imprisonment, forced labor, family separation, violation of reproductive rights, torture, and the use of transnational repression, HRW said.
In a 2022 report, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said that these abuses “may constitute … crimes against humanity.”
“The authorities continue to detain and imprison Uyghurs on vague charges, though precise information is limited due to the severe government control of information in the region,” HRW said in the statement.
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