File footage of Ilham Tohti, jailed Chinese Muslim scholar, finalist for the Sakharov Prize

Record ID: 1437993

  • Title: File footage of Ilham Tohti, jailed Chinese Muslim scholar, finalist for the Sakharov Prize
  • Date: 21st October 2019
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Mandarin) UIGHUR SCHOLAR ILHAM TOHTI, SAYING: "There's no representative for us. No newspaper of our own. What the ordinary people can do when they meet injustice? Some of them will fight in resistance. Even though I oppose violence, I believe there will be more and more violent resistance by the ordinary people if the government polices don't change." BEIJING, CHINA (FILE - OCTOBER 2013) (REUTERS) TOHTI READING NEWSPAPER TOHTI'S FACE CHINESE NEWSPAPER WITH HEADLINE READING (Chinese): "police solved Oct. 28 violent and terrorist attack (on Tiananmen Square)"
  • Embargoed: 4th November 2019 07:25
  • Keywords: Ilham Tohti Xinjiang China riots separatism Sahkarov Prize for Freedom of Thought European Parliament
  • Location: BEIJING, URUMQI, XINJIANG AUTONOMOUS REGION, CHINA
  • City: BEIJING, URUMQI, XINJIANG AUTONOMOUS REGION, CHINA
  • Country: China
  • Topics: Fundamental Rights/Civil Liberties,Government/Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA003B26FU4N
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Ilham Tohti, a prominent Uighur academic who championed the rights of Xinjiang's Uighur Muslim people and was jailed for life on separatism charges, is a finalist for the Sahkarov Prize for Freedom of Thought.
    In China, Tohti is regarded as an outspoken intellectual who has repeatedly criticised the government for not giving Xinjiang and its Uighurs more autonomy.
    Uighurs are a Turkic-speaking people. Many resent restrictions on their culture and religion, and complain they are denied economic opportunities amid an influx of majority Han Chinese into Xinjiang.
    The government has blamed a series of violent attacks in which hundreds of people have been killed on Islamist militants who it says want to establish an independent state in Xinjiang called East Turkestan. The government says Uighurs are granted wide religious, cultural and linguistic freedom.
    Tohti, 49, was an economics professor at Beijing's Minzu University, which specialises in ethnic minority studies, before he was sentenced to life in prison in the western region of Xinjiang in 2014. He has said he never associated with any terrorist organisation or foreign-based group and "relied only on pen and paper to diplomatically request" human rights and legal rights for Uighurs.
    At his trial, prosecutors in Xinjiang said Tohti had promoted independence for the region on a website he managed called Uighurbiz.net. State news agency Xinhua said that Tohti had "bewitched and coerced young ethnic students to work for the website and built a criminal syndicate".
    Tohti had said he established the website to promote dialogue between scholars and that he had publicly opposed separatism and violence and rejected the prosecution's evidence and said statements against him by student volunteers who had worked on the website were made under pressure from authorities.
    The European Parliament will announce the winner of the prize on Thursday (October 24).
    (Production: Fang Nanlin)
  • Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2019. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
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