TOKYO — The daughter of Uyghur economist Ilham Tohti, who was given a life sentence on separatism-related charges in China in 2014, said recently her ongoing goal is to ensure as many people as possible are aware of the oppression her people have suffered.
Jewher Ilham, 30, who was separated from her now 55-year-old father in February 2013 at a Beijing airport by Chinese authorities and currently resides in the United States, told Kyodo News she has not returned to China since that day and that her father's current location is unknown.
Ilham Tohti, a former professor at Minzu University of China in Beijing, was barred from leaving the country to take up a position as a visiting scholar at a college in the United States.
He was then detained in January 2014 and convicted in September that year following a closed-door trial. He was accused of advocating for the independence of the far-western Xinjiang region, the ancestral home of the Uyghurs, and preaching violent resistance against the Chinese government.
His sentence, finalised in November 2014, drew outrage from human rights organisations and Western governments. Ilham Tohti, who was awarded the Sakharov Prize by the European Parliament in 2019 for his fight for the rights of the Uyghur minority, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Jewher Ilham, who accepted the Sakharov Prize at a ceremony in France on behalf of her father, has called for his release and advocated for the rights of the predominantly Muslim Uyghur people.
As the detention of many Uyghur people at Chinese facilities for "re-education" has come to light since 2018, Jewher Ilham said she believes conditions for the ethnic group have been "deteriorating year by year." She led the production of a 2023 documentary film collecting the stories of people from the Uyghur, Kazakh, and Uzbek ethnic minorities who fled China to escape oppression.
For the movie "All Static & Noise," many people "had the courage to testify about their daily lives where freedom was deprived," Jewher Ilham said. She hopes the film reaches a worldwide audience.
In January this year, Jewher Ilham visited Japan for the first time and called for a legislative amendment to bring the country in line with international efforts to bar the use of products made with Uyghur forced labour and to stop rights violations.
She insisted China's ruling Communist Party continues the practice of forced labour because it bolsters the world's second-largest economy. Jewher Ilham urged companies worldwide to end interactions with Chinese supply chains suspected of using slave labour.
Major economies including the United States and the European Union (EU) have adopted legislation to ban imports of goods made with forced Uyghur labour.
In 2022, a report from the United Nations (UN) said "serious human rights violations" have been committed in Xinjiang in the context of Beijing's application of strategies against terrorism and extremism, with those placed in "vocational educational and training centres" subject to torture, abuse and inhuman treatment between 2017 and 2019.
However, the Chinese government rejected the report, claiming the assessment was "based on the disinformation and lies fabricated by anti-China forces" and "completely illegal and void."
In the interview, Jewher Ilham recalled how she was separated from her father, who was engaged to be a visiting scholar at the Bloomington-based Indiana University in the United States. She was meant to accompany him there.
While Jewher Ilham was allowed to board a plane, her father, who was looking forward to travelling to a "land of freedom," was prevented by Chinese authorities from going through immigration. Ilham Tohti told his daughter at the time not to cry so the authorities would not think Uyghur girls are "weak."
He also said she should leave China, saying, "Look at how this country treats you. Do you still want to stay in this country?"
About a year later, Ilham Tohti was detained in front of his two young sons, with Chinese police storming his residence in Beijing, Jewher Ilham said.
With backing from her father's friends in the United States, Jewher Ilham called for his release in media interviews and testified before Congress in April 2014, although she did not then have a good command of English.
Friends of Ilham Tohti have said Jewher Ilham has taken up her father's fight for Uyghur human rights, but she said she will "never be able to reach his level" as he spoke up in a "very difficult environment," a society with "no human rights and no freedom of speech" and under "extreme oppression."
Jewher Ilham, 30, who was separated from her now 55-year-old father in February 2013 at a Beijing airport by Chinese authorities and currently resides in the United States, told Kyodo News she has not returned to China since that day and that her father's current location is unknown.
Ilham Tohti, a former professor at Minzu University of China in Beijing, was barred from leaving the country to take up a position as a visiting scholar at a college in the United States.
He was then detained in January 2014 and convicted in September that year following a closed-door trial. He was accused of advocating for the independence of the far-western Xinjiang region, the ancestral home of the Uyghurs, and preaching violent resistance against the Chinese government.
His sentence, finalised in November 2014, drew outrage from human rights organisations and Western governments. Ilham Tohti, who was awarded the Sakharov Prize by the European Parliament in 2019 for his fight for the rights of the Uyghur minority, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Jewher Ilham, who accepted the Sakharov Prize at a ceremony in France on behalf of her father, has called for his release and advocated for the rights of the predominantly Muslim Uyghur people.
As the detention of many Uyghur people at Chinese facilities for "re-education" has come to light since 2018, Jewher Ilham said she believes conditions for the ethnic group have been "deteriorating year by year." She led the production of a 2023 documentary film collecting the stories of people from the Uyghur, Kazakh, and Uzbek ethnic minorities who fled China to escape oppression.
For the movie "All Static & Noise," many people "had the courage to testify about their daily lives where freedom was deprived," Jewher Ilham said. She hopes the film reaches a worldwide audience.
In January this year, Jewher Ilham visited Japan for the first time and called for a legislative amendment to bring the country in line with international efforts to bar the use of products made with Uyghur forced labour and to stop rights violations.
She insisted China's ruling Communist Party continues the practice of forced labour because it bolsters the world's second-largest economy. Jewher Ilham urged companies worldwide to end interactions with Chinese supply chains suspected of using slave labour.
Major economies including the United States and the European Union (EU) have adopted legislation to ban imports of goods made with forced Uyghur labour.
In 2022, a report from the United Nations (UN) said "serious human rights violations" have been committed in Xinjiang in the context of Beijing's application of strategies against terrorism and extremism, with those placed in "vocational educational and training centres" subject to torture, abuse and inhuman treatment between 2017 and 2019.
However, the Chinese government rejected the report, claiming the assessment was "based on the disinformation and lies fabricated by anti-China forces" and "completely illegal and void."
In the interview, Jewher Ilham recalled how she was separated from her father, who was engaged to be a visiting scholar at the Bloomington-based Indiana University in the United States. She was meant to accompany him there.
While Jewher Ilham was allowed to board a plane, her father, who was looking forward to travelling to a "land of freedom," was prevented by Chinese authorities from going through immigration. Ilham Tohti told his daughter at the time not to cry so the authorities would not think Uyghur girls are "weak."
He also said she should leave China, saying, "Look at how this country treats you. Do you still want to stay in this country?"
About a year later, Ilham Tohti was detained in front of his two young sons, with Chinese police storming his residence in Beijing, Jewher Ilham said.
With backing from her father's friends in the United States, Jewher Ilham called for his release in media interviews and testified before Congress in April 2014, although she did not then have a good command of English.
Friends of Ilham Tohti have said Jewher Ilham has taken up her father's fight for Uyghur human rights, but she said she will "never be able to reach his level" as he spoke up in a "very difficult environment," a society with "no human rights and no freedom of speech" and under "extreme oppression."
