In the holding room of the Beijing airport, Jewher Ilham had a choice to make. She could remain in China with her father \u2014 detained and barred from travel \u2014 or trek to the United States alone. <\/p>\n
By Alison Graham
Published 10\/05\/14 2:05pm<\/p>\n
In the holding room of the Beijing airport, Jewher Ilham had a choice to make. She could remain in China with her father \u2014 detained and barred from travel \u2014 or trek to the United States alone. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou want to go?\u201d her father, Ilham Tohti, asked in Uighur.<\/p>\n
All of their plans came to a halt in that holding room. Jewher was to join her father for one month at IU, where he was going to be a visiting scholar for the 2014-15 school year. <\/p>\n
She caught her father\u2019s stare as the room waited in silence.<\/p>\n
Again, the airport security woman asked her for a decision. <\/p>\n
But before she could speak, her father replied for her.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe will go.\u201d <\/p>\n
He turned to see a shocked look on his daughter\u2019s face. <\/p>\n
\u201cAt least one person in my family should be free,\u201d he said to her. <\/p>\n
Jewher was whisked to the boarding platform and put on a plane to Chicago. For the next 14 hours, it was just Jewher and her father\u2019s empty seat.<\/p>\n
Now in the United States, Jewher is attending classes at Ivy Tech and IU. In the spring, she will be a full-time freshman.<\/p>\n
She decided to study journalism, in honor of the work her father did in China.<\/p>\n
Before his arrest, Ilham Tohti was a prominent scholar and professor in Beijing. <\/p>\n
He started the blog Uighur Online in 2006, meant to bridge the levels of understanding between two ethnic groups of China, the Uighurs and the Han Chinese. <\/p>\n
The Uighurs are an ethnic minority group in China who speak a different language and practice different customs from the Han Chinese. The majority of Uighurs are Muslim and speak a Turk-based language, which uses a different alphabet from the Chinese language. <\/p>\n
Historically, the Chinese government has implemented an assimilationist policy toward the Uighurs, not allowing them to practice their religion or speak their language outside of certain areas. <\/p>\n
Even now, Jewher remembers the way store owners would treat her after they found out she was Uighur, not giving her the same attention as other customers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Beijing I grew up with Han Chinese students,\u201d Jewher said. \u201cI didn\u2019t really have Uighur friends. With my classmates, it was fine. But when I go out of school, I can feel there are differences between how they treat me and how they treat others.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Uighur people have often called for independence from China and to create their own separate state. <\/p>\n
Despite the popularity of the separatist movement, Uighur Online worked to start dialogue between the Han and Uighur people and avoid separation from China. <\/p>\n
But in January, separatism was the very charge filed against Ilham Tohti for the work he completed on his blog.<\/p>\n
Jewher\u2019s father gave her all of the money he had and a card with one name and number on it. He instructed her to call the number when she arrived in the United States. <\/p>\n
After the 14-hour flight, Jewher arrived in Chicago. <\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t speak a word of English and entered the country with a J2 visa, meaning she had to be accompanied by the original visa holder. That visa holder was still in Beijing. <\/p>\n
Police escorted her away. Here she was in another country in another holding room.<\/p>\n
All she could say was \u201cfather,\u201d \u201cpolice took away, away.\u201d <\/p>\n
For three more hours, she waited. No one in the airport staff could speak Chinese. <\/p>\n
They finally asked her if she had any friends in the U.S., which she understood and handed them the card. <\/p>\n
They called the number. On the other end of the call, Elliot Sperling, associate professor of Central Eurasian Studies at IU, picked up his phone.<\/p>\n
Sperling was planning to meet Jewher and her father at the Indianapolis airport when they arrived from Chicago. <\/p>\n
The night before the flight was supposed to land, Sperling heard from friends in China that Ilham had been detained at the airport in Beijing. <\/p>\n
He was shocked and disappointed but awoke the next morning to find that Jewher would arrive alone in Indianapolis. <\/p>\n
Sperling had long been in talks with the Department of Homeland Security and the state department to arrange for their original arrival.<\/p>\n
Jewher would remain in the U.S.<\/p>\n
At the time her father was detained, Jewher was never meant to permanently leave her own country.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a bureaucratic mistake letting her go,\u201d Sperling said. \u201cAnd the person who let her go, I am told, was punished.\u201d <\/p>\n
Sperling met Jewher upon her arrival in Indianapolis and drove her back to Bloomington. They had never met before. <\/p>\n
\u201cMy father told me, \u2018You can trust this person,\u2019\u201d Jewher said. \u201cI also had no choice. This is the only person that I can rely on.\u201d <\/p>\n
They drove back to Bloomington and Sperling tried to talk to her in Chinese. But after traveling 30 hours with no sleep and no food, Jewher could hardly think. <\/p>\n
\u201cMy eyes were looking outside, but I was thinking of something else,\u201d she said. \u201cI was looking out of the car window imagining myself doing these things with my father.\u201d <\/p>\n
Jewher stayed at Sperling\u2019s house that night. Her father was released the next day and she was able to Skype him. <\/p>\n
Sperling said her demeanor changed completely after she talked to him. She became more talkative and open with him. <\/p>\n
But back at her home in China, something was wrong.<\/p>\n
In Beijing, Ilham remained under house arrest for two days after he was released from the airport.<\/p>\n
He was continually harassed and threatened by the authorities, Sperling said. <\/p>\n
Ilham was picking up his mother at the airport last year as she traveled to Beijing from Xianjing to see a doctor about her heart problems. <\/p>\n
Ilham\u2019s wife, mother and two sons were on their way back from the airport when they felt a sudden crash and thud from behind. Behind the wheel of the car that hit Ilham\u2019s vehicle were police officers from the Chinese government. <\/p>\n
Ilham stepped out and yelled that there were children and seniors in the car. <\/p>\n
Then came the threats. Ilham\u2019s family would be killed, the officers said, if he continued to write about the Uighurs on his blog. <\/p>\n
Ilham continued to write and detailed the encounter with police on his site. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe let it be known,\u201d Sperling said. \u201c(The event) was on the Internet right afterwards. He doesn\u2019t shut up.\u201d <\/p>\n
He wrote about the Uighur situation in China and often criticized the government\u2019s assimilation policies. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe was never an advocate of separatism,\u201d Sperling said. \u201cHe might be the only Uighur intellectual who was not for independence.\u201d <\/p>\n
Despite the lack of evidence, it didn\u2019t stop the authorities from arresting Ilham on the afternoon of Jan. 14, 2014. <\/p>\n
Ilham was napping in his apartment when the police arrived in his home, dragged him from the couch and beat him in front of his two young sons. <\/p>\n
They took him away and confiscated every last item in the house, Jewher said. <\/p>\n
The family was left with nothing, and the government stripped all of the property under his name. <\/p>\n
Since that day in January, Ilham has been in prison. For months, no one knew where he was. Finally, after about five months, lawyers were allowed to speak with him. <\/p>\n
He had been denied food, Sperling said, and had his legs shackled. <\/p>\n
After nine months in prison, Ilham Tohti was brought to trial in front of a Chinese court for his alleged crimes. <\/p>\n
The court refused to call any of his witnesses and denied his lawyers access to any evidence, Sperling said. <\/p>\n
\u201cUnder no fair regime would this be considered an independent, just trial,\u201d he said. \u201cThe whole situation is so disturbingly unjust, it\u2019s almost shocking.\u201d <\/p>\n
Ilham was sentenced to life in prison Sept. 23. <\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone expected a harsh sentence, but no one expected this harsh,\u201d Sperling said. \u201cAnd even though we expected a harsh sentence, when it was announced, you felt like you\u2019ve been hit.\u201d <\/p>\n
Sperling said he and other scholars close to the case expected his sentence to be around 10 years. They never expected a sentence this drastic, especially because his crimes would not be considered crimes in any democracy, he said. <\/p>\n
The sentence sparked outrage among many in the international community. The White House, the European Union and Canada, to name a few, condemned the sentence and demanded Ilham\u2019s release. <\/p>\n
A well-known Chinese dissident wrote that the Chinese authorities had created the Nelson Mandela of the Uighurs by sentencing him to life in prison. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s risen to the consciousness of people about political imprisonment in China,\u201d he said. \u201cAll these things basically send a signal to the Uighurs that this is not their country; this is not a country where their culture has an equal status.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the U.S., even though her father has been sentenced, Jewher said she will continue to fight. <\/p>\n
She\u2019s spoken out in front of crowds calling for her father\u2019s release. She has published an op-ed piece in the New York Times about her father\u2019s role in the Uighur situation in China. She accepted the International PEN award on his behalf. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m pretty sure it\u2019s going to change,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m keeping hope. I don\u2019t think my father will really stay in the jail forever.\u201d <\/p>\n
The work and hope all comes from the US because Jewher will not be able to return to China before she finishes her studies. If she returns, there is a good chance she would be barred from coming back to the States.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike my father, I spoke too much,\u201d she said. \u201cEverything changes so fast. I thought life would continue like this. I would study here, get my admission here, I would talk to my family on the phone every day even though they can\u2019t visit me. Finally, when I graduate one day, I can go back and stay with them. That was my dream.\u201d <\/p>\n
Although her dream cannot be a reality, Jewher said she remains strong for her father and for herself. <\/p>\n
\u201cI have to accept this life for myself,\u201d she said. \u201cI have to be tough. I have to face it. I didn\u2019t choose this life for myself, but now it\u2019s coming to me, and I have to face it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then she remembers some of her father\u2019s last words to her back in the Beijing airport.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt least there should be one person in my family that is free,\u201d Jewher said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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