《中國改變》和《人道中國》發起致歐洲議會議員們的信，
A Letter to Members of the European Parliament
Regarding Nomination of Professor Ilham Tohti for the Sakharov Prize
Dear Member of the European Parliament,
We are writing to urge you to nominate the Uighur economist Ilham Tohti for this year’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. We are a diverse group of individuals and organizations from around the world who are deeply concerned about the Chinese government’s persecution of Professor Tohti, and the deplorable state of freedom of expression and human rights in China.
We understand that the European Union has been equally concerned about Professor Tohti, and that EU spokespersons have on multiple occasions issued statements of support, as have several non-European governments. In February, 2014, shortly after Professor Tohti was arrested, the High Representative of the Union of Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton expressed her concern. In August 2014, an EU spokesperson stated: "We are deeply concerned about the announcement that Professor Ilham Tohti has been charged with separatism, after more than six months of detention without adequate access to his lawyer and proper medical care. For years, Professor Tohti has worked peacefully within China's laws to promote equal rights for all of China's citizens and to encourage exchange and understanding between different ethnic groups.” In astatement on September 23, 2014, the EU’s External Action Service said: "The EU condemns the life sentence for alleged ‘separatism’ handed out today to Uighur economics professor Ilham Tohti, which is completely unjustified.”
We thank the European Union for its firm stance on this case, and we wish to thank you, as a member of the European Parliament, for your unwavering support of Professor Ilham Tohti. We have also been encouraged by the wide-range of support from journalists, writers, and academics.
Professor Tohti was from an elite Uighur family, and many of its members, including his father, were in fact Communist Party cadres in China’s northeastern region, inhabited by Uighurs and other ethnicities. As a rarified member of the small Uighur intelligentsia and an economist at the prestigious Minzu University in Beijing, he could have enjoyed a stable and comfortable life. However, Professor Tohti grew increasingly concerned by the worsening economic and cultural plight of his people, and the division between the Uighurs and Han Chinese, China’s dominant ethnicity. He decided to address those issues in his teaching, research work and academic writings, in a climate where speaking out requires courage, and carries tremendous personal risk and cost. From 1994 to 2003, he was barred on and off from publishing and teaching due to his criticism of the failures of the local government in Xinjiang. In 2006, Professor Tohti founded Uighur Online, a website designed to facilitate peaceful communication and build trust between Uighurs and Han people. It was repeatedly hacked and eventually shut down in 2009. After the July unrest in Xinjiang in 2009, Professor Tohti faced increasingly harsher treatment. He was subjected to short detentions, house arrests, confiscation of assets, verbal and physical threats, and was barred from traveling outside China.
But he persisted in his peaceful advocacy on behalf of Uighurs and for better relations between Uighurs and Han. Among the policy recommendations he made in 2011 to Chinese leaders, he championed economic, cultural, and religious policies conducive to peaceful ethnic co-existence, and warned that “Xinjiang’s coercive stability maintenance policies, particularly in the area of religion, are having a grave impact on the lives, jobs and mobility of Xinjiang’s Uighur population. If the government does not change its thinking and tactics with respect to religious issues, I fear that religion will become the single biggest cause of ethnic strife and social discord in Xinjiang.”
The Economist noted, “No other Uighur inside the country has come close to speaking out on such issues with his persistence.” Professor Tohti has been known as a moderate and a voice of understanding between Han Chinese and ethnic minorities. But as early as 2009, he prepared himself for prison, even death. “That just might be the price our people have to pay,” he said. “Though I may have to go, perhaps that will draw more attention to the plight of our people.”
“After seeing the judgment against me, contrary to what people may think, I now think I have a more important duty to bear,” he said in a statement issued the day after his trial concluded in September 2014. “Peace is a heavenly gift to the Uighur and Han people. Only peace and good will can create common interest.”
Now, nine months into his prison term, Professor Tohti has not been allowed a single family visit.
Whenever a courageous man stands up against injustice, he stands up for all of us, and we must stand behind him and behind the values we believe in. We shall not fail him. The EU and the leading democracies in the world have a responsibility to be the champions of Professor Tohti.
Our hope is that the European Parliament will award Professor Ilham Tohti the Sakharov Prize for his courage, intelligence, and dignity, evident in his work, his character, and his public expressions over the span of twenty years. All this he has done at great risk to himself and his family. The prize, we hope, will also help bring attention to the plight of the Uighur people and China’s deleterious policies in Xinjiang as Professor Tohti so hoped.
Yours faithfully,
Hu Jia, laureate of the Sakharov Prize in 2008. Beijing, People’s Republic of China.
Individuals (in alphabetic order)
Margarete Bause, Fraktionsvorsitzende von Bündnis 90/Die Grünen Bayern (Group Chairman of Alliance 90 / The Greens Bayern). Bavaria, Germany.
Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor & Professor of Linguistics (Emeritus), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA.
Marie Holzman, spécialiste de la Chine contemporaine et présidente de l’association Solidarité Chine, chevalier de la Légion d'honneur. Paris, France.
Gregory Lee, Professor of Chinese and Transcultural Studies, University of Lyon-Jean Moulin, and FHKAH (Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy of the Humanities), France.
Liao Yiwu, exiled Chinese author in Germany and laureate of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade in 2012. Berlin, Germany.
Göran Axel Lindblad, Swedish politician, president of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience. Sweden.
Perry Link, Chancellorial Chair for Teaching across Disciplines at the University of California at Riverside.
Markus Löning, Vice-President Liberal International, Chair of LI Human Rights Committee, FDP Bundesvorstand. Berlin, Germany.
Herta Müller, German novelist, poet, essayist and recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature. Germany.
Andrew J. Nathan, Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science, Columbia University.
Sean Roberts, Professor of the Practice of International Affairs and Professor of Anthropology, & Director of International Development Studies Program, George Washington University.
Martin Schult, secretary general of German Publishers and Booksellers Association. Germany.
Teng Biao, legal scholar and human rights lawyer, Co-founder of the Open Constitution Initiative, recipient of Human Rights Prize of French Republic (2007) and Democracy Award of the National Endowment for Democracy (U. S., 2008). Cambridge, MA, USA.
Eduardo J. Ruiz Vieytez, Professor of Human Rights Law at Deusto University, Faculty of Social and Human Sciences. Bilbao, Spain.
Tsering Woeser, Tibetan poet, essayist, and blogger. Recipient of Courage in Journalism Award (International Women's Media Foundation, 2010), Prince Claus Award (2011), and International Women of Courage Award (the U. S. Department of State, 2013).Beijing, People’s Republic of China.
Organizations (in alphabetic order)
Asian Federation against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD), a federation of human rights organizations working directly on the issue of involuntary disappearances in Asia. Philippines.
China Aid, a Christian international human rights organization inspired by God's call to love, serve, and seek justice for the persecuted. Texas, USA.
China Change, news and commentary from those who work for a free and just China. Washington, DC, USA.
Chinese Human Rights Defender, promoting human rights & empowering grassroots activism in China. Hong Kong.
Forum 2000 Foundation, pursues the legacy of Václav Havel by supporting the values of democracy and respect for human rights, assisting the development of civil society, and encouraging religious, cultural and ethnic tolerance. Czech Republic.
Human Rights Foundation, promotes and protects human rights globally, with a focus on closed societies. Sponsor of Oslo Freedom Forum. New York City, USA.
Human Rights in China, advancing a peaceful transition to democracy in China through truth, understanding, citizen power, and cooperative action. New York, USA.
Humanitarian China, for a human Chinese society. San Francisco, USA.
Independent Chinese PEN Center (ICPC), a non-political, non-profit organization of writers that fights for the protection of freedom of expression and publication.
Initiative for China, advancing a peaceful transition to democracy in China through truth, understanding, citizen power, and cooperative action. Washington, DC, USA.
Interfaith International, a NGO that promotes the rights of persons of all different religions and ethnic groups with 'special consultative status' with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
International Campaign for Tibet, promote human rights and democratic freedoms for the people of Tibet. Washington, DC, USA.
Nonviolent Radical Party, Transnational and Transparty (PRNTT), a nonviolent organization following Gandhian principles, and a NGO with General consultative status at the ECOSOC of the UN.
Southern Mongolia Human Rights Information Center, promote and protect ethnic Mongolian rights. New York City, NY, USA.
Students for a Free Tibet international, transforming our world through non-violent actions. New York City, NY, USA.
Unpresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO), Brussels, Belgium.
Uyghur American Association, working to promote the preservation and flourishing of a rich, humanistic and diverse Uyghur culture, and to support the right of the Uyghur people to use peaceful, democratic means to determine their own political future.Washington, DC, USA.
Uyghur Human Rights Project, promoting democracy and human rights through research. Washington, DC, USA.
World Uyghur Congress, promoting human rights, democracy and freedom for the Uyghur people. Munich, Germany.
A selection of Professor Ilham Tohti’s writings and interviews
My Ideals and the Career Path I Have Chosen, 2011. In this autobiographical essay, Professor Ilham Tohti relates his upbringing, education, aspiration, and work. One of the sections is about the founding and running of the Uighur Online website, long since being disabled.
Present-Day Ethnic Problems in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region Overview and Recommendations, 2011. This document was written by Professor Ilham Tohti in response to a 2011 request from high-level officials in the Chinese government. In it, the author examines nine areas of social, political, economic and religious life in China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, analyzes the underlying causes of ethnic tensions in Xinjiang, and provides concrete recommendations for reducing ethnic strife and protecting the basic rights of Xinjiang’s citizens. Executive summary available.
Ilham Tohti’s Statement after Receiving a Life Sentence for Allegedly “Separatist” Crimes, September 25, 2014. “My outcries are for our people and, even more, for the future of China.”
2009 Interview, in this sober interview conducted by Professor Ilham Tohti’s friend, Tibetan writer Woeser, in the wake of Urumqi unrest in 2009, Ilham reflected on the personal risks he had taken on, the hardship he and his family had been going through after their assets were confiscated, and how, despite everything, he would be honored to “trade my humble life to call for freedom.”
Statement by phone to Radio Free Asia days before he was detained on Jan. 15, 2014. “I have never associated myself with a terrorist organization or a foreign-based group. The path I have pursued all along is an honorable and a peaceful path. I have relied only on pen and paper to diplomatically request the human rights, legal rights, and autonomous regional rights for the Uyghurs.”
Ilham Tohti should get the Nobel peace prize, not life in prison, Teng Biao’s op-ed in the Guardian, September, 2014. “While the secret police see secrets everywhere, Tohti had none. Everything he has said and written is published online or in the media. It is an absurdity that he was charged, tried and sentenced for separatism.” “The Chinese communist authorities, with their excessive violence, have created hostility, division and despair in Xinjiang and Tibet. Tohti has denounced violence and devoted himself to bridging the divide and promoting understanding and tolerance. He should be awarded the Nobel peace prize, not tortured and locked up in prison.”
Contact persons on behalf of the signatories:
Peter Irwin, peteirwin2@gmail.com
Yaxue Cao, yaxuec@gmail.com
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