A Chinese court\u2019s conviction on Sept. 23 of Ilham Tohti, an economics professor, on charges of \u201cseparatism\u201d and its sentencing him to life imprisonment highlight the government\u2019s efforts to subdue unrest in Xinjiang, the country\u2019s far-western region that is also home to most Uighurs, the Muslim ethnic group to which Tohti belongs.<\/p>\n
A Chinese court\u2019s conviction on Sept. 23 of Ilham Tohti, an economics professor, on charges of \u201cseparatism\u201d and its sentencing him to life imprisonment highlight the government\u2019s efforts to subdue unrest in Xinjiang, the country\u2019s far-western region that is also home to most Uighurs, the Muslim ethnic group to which Tohti belongs.<\/p>\n
In convicting Tohti of spurious charges, China\u2019s justice system has imprisoned a scholar whose research includes viable economic and policy solutions that would help address unrest in Xinjiang. Tohti maintains he is innocent of all charges and, in a statement issued by his lawyer, Li Fangping, said he aimed only \u201cto cry out on behalf of my people, and even more for the future of China.\u201d<\/p>\n
China\u2019s future should include protection of basic human rights as enshrined in Chinese law.<\/p>\n
Beijing should unconditionally release Tohti, and acquit him of all charges. The court\u2019s action undermines the integrity of the Chinese legal system and further erodes the government\u2019s legitimacy in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.<\/p>\n
Authorities had detained Tohti at his home in Beijing on Jan. 15, formally arrested him on Feb. 20 without charge, then held him incommunicado for more than five months. His lawyer was then denied regular access to his client. Tohti was eventually charged with separatism. Tohti has advocated for minority rights, but there are no known links between unrest in Xinjiang and his academic or advocacy work.<\/p>\n
Tohti has promoted a progressive economic policy to extend economic opportunity to Uighurs. He has researched economic and social conditions in the region, including the destabilizing effects of high unemployment there.<\/p>\n
After his arrest, state-controlled media misrepresented Tohti\u2019s research and writings in an attempt to support the charge of separatism. The government blocked access to his website and publications, and silenced public discourse by removing Tohti\u2019s name from microblogs and search engines.<\/p>\n
Authorities have harassed, detained or arrested some 10 students who contributed to publications and policy analysis on Tohti\u2019s website. A student of his at Min Zhu University was detained for allegedly \u201crevealing state secrets.\u201d Two others were denied permission to travel abroad for study and were accused of being \u201cpolitically unqualified.\u201d Another student was charged with \u201cattempting to flee the country\u201d and blocked from travel when about to leave for short-term study abroad.<\/p>\n
In fact, Tohti is a well-established scholar who peacefully promotes understanding between Uighurs and Han Chinese. Tohti\u2019s research focuses on an important tie between Uighurs and Han Chinese, which is the economy. Chinese development policy has depended on the appearance of social stability, at the expense of basic rights and freedoms of all Chinese citizens \u2013 as demonstrated by Tohti\u2019s wrongful conviction and life imprisonment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Chinese court\u2019s conviction on Sept. 23 of Ilham Tohti, an economics professor, on charges of \u201cseparatism\u201d and its sentencing him to life imprisonment highlight the government\u2019s efforts to subdue unrest in Xinjiang, the country\u2019s far-western region that is also home to most Uighurs, the Muslim ethnic group to which Tohti belongs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1250,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-1251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1251"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=1251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}