{"id":1123,"date":"2024-01-22T21:28:43","date_gmt":"2024-01-22T18:28:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/?p=1123"},"modified":"2024-01-22T21:30:02","modified_gmt":"2024-01-22T18:30:02","slug":"press-release-world-uyghur-congress-calls-for-release-of-ilham-tohti","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/press-release-world-uyghur-congress-calls-for-release-of-ilham-tohti\/","title":{"rendered":"Press Release: World Uyghur Congress Calls for Release of Ilham Tohti"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On the 10th anniversary of the arrest of the renowned Uyghur economist Ilham Tohti by the Chinese authorities, the World Uyghur Congress calls for renewed attention to his case, advocating for his immediate release, as well as the release of countless Uyghur intellectuals and scholars currently detained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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On the 10th anniversary of the arrest of the renowned Uyghur economist Ilham Tohti by the Chinese authorities, the World Uyghur Congress calls for renewed attention to his case, advocating for his immediate release, as well as the release of countless Uyghur intellectuals and scholars currently detained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018\u2019Ilham Tohti\u2019s life imprisonment was the first sign of the repressive policies to be implemented in East Turkistan,\u2019\u2019 said WUC President Dolkun Isa. \u2018\u2019China\u2019s decision demonstrated an absolute refusal to consider the concerns of the Uyghur people, and his fate warned the entire Uyghur society that even peaceful and moderate voices were no longer tolerated.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professor Tohti, who diligently worked for two decades fostering dialogue and conciliation between Uyghurs and Han Chinese, was given a life sentence in September 2014 on fabricated charges following a two-day trial. Tohti was initially arrested in January 2014 and subsequently convicted of \u201cinciting separatism\u201d in a trial described<\/a> as \u201ca farce\u201d by the PEN American Center. Amnesty International called<\/a> the sentence \u201cdeplorable\u201d with \u201cno basis in reality,\u201d and Human Rights Watch stated <\/a>that his trial amounted to \u201can injustice of the highest order.\u201d Tohti\u2019s appeal was subsequently denied in November 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than 300 cases of Uyghur intellectuals and other Turkic cultural scholars, who have been detained, imprisoned, or forcibly disappeared, have been documented<\/a> since 2016, according to the Uyghur Human Rights Project. In recent years, some of these cases have received wide coverage in the international press. UN Special Rapporteurs have also expressed alarm at the situations of Tashpolat Tiyip<\/a>, Ilham Tohti, <\/a>Yalqun Rozi<\/a> and more recently<\/a> of Qurban Mamut, Ekpar Asat and Gulshan Abbas. In September of 2023, the news<\/a> of the life imprisonment of Uyghur scholar Dr. Rahile Dawut once again brought the global community\u2019s attention to the plight of Uyghur scholars and intellectuals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professor Ilham Tohti, who criticised oppressive policies against Uyghurs and wrote extensively on constructive approaches to overcoming unequal treatment between ethnic groups, remains an inspirational figure for the Uyghur community and a symbol of the peaceful struggle for basic rights. For his work, Professor Tohti has been awarded countless prizes and awards, including the 2019 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought by the European Parliament. In the same year, he also received the Freedom Award in absentia from Freedom House and, jointly with the Balkan-based Youth Initiative for Human Rights (YIHR), the Vaclav Havel Human Rights Award from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). In December 2023, around 180 ministers, parliamentarians, rectors and professors nominated<\/a> Ilham Tohti for the Nobel Peace Prize. He has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize multiple times since 2019, and was shortlisted<\/a> for the prize in 2020 and 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the 10th anniversary of the arrest of the renowned Uyghur economist Ilham Tohti by the Chinese authorities, the World Uyghur Congress calls for renewed attention to his case, advocating for his immediate release, as well as the release of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,37,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1123"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1123"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1127,"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1123\/revisions\/1127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}