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10.11.16To Beijing’s Dismay, Jailed Uighur Scholar Wins Human Rights Award
Washington Post
A coalition of leading rights groups will bestow their annual award on Ilham Tohti, who is currently serving a life sentence in China
Reporting & Opinion
12.23.14
China in 2014 Through the Eyes of a Human Rights Advocate
from China Change
This time last year, volunteers and I were busy writing and translating articles to prepare for the New Citizens Movement trials. Many Chinese voices were speaking out forcefully against these trials: law professors, rights lawyers, liberal...
Media
09.25.14
An Internet Where Nobody Says Anything
Here is what a court in Urumqi, the capital of China’s western Xinjiang region, concludes Ilham Tohti, a balding, thick-set, 44-year-old professor, did: “Using ‘Uighur Online’ as a platform, and taking advantage of his role as a university professor...
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09.23.14Chinese Court Sentences Uighur Scholar to Life in Separatism Case
New York Times
A university professor who has come to symbolize peaceful resistance by ethnic Uighurs to Chinese policies was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of separatism in the western region of Xinjiang.
The NYRB China Archive
09.22.14
‘They Don’t Want Moderate Uighurs’
from New York Review of Books
In my series of interviews with Chinese intellectuals, there is an empty chair for Ilham Tohti, the economist and Uighur activist. It’s not that I hadn’t heard of him or hadn’t been in China long enough to have met him before he was arrested earlier...
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09.18.14Uighur Scholar Ilham Tohti Goes on Trial in China on Separatist Charges
New York Times
A conviction of Ilham Tohti for separatism could result in the death penalty, but in his case life imprisonment is likely to be the maximum punishment because of the specific charges.
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07.31.14China Charges Leading Uighur Professor with Separatism
New York Times
Although not unexpected, analysts say the decision to criminally prosecute Ilham Tohti is a clear signal that the Communist Party leadership under President Xi Jinping will broach no criticism of its increasingly hard-line ethnic policies.
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07.17.14Blacklisting Scholars
New York Times
China is increasingly denying entry to foreign scholars to punish those who work on issues that Beijing deems to be politically troublesome. If the government hopes to drive foreign scholars into self-censorship, this policy is self-defeating.&...
Media
04.17.14
Ai Weiwei’s Reach Draws New Yorkers’ Attention to Free Speech
“Ai Weiwei retweeted me!” exclaimed a young blonde woman, laughing and waving her iPhone in the air with excitement. She and some two hundred other New Yorkers had gathered on the steps of the Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army Plaza to show her...
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03.11.14U.S. Ambassador Urges China to Respect Human Rights
ABC
At his final news conference as ambassador, Gary Locke said that Washington is "very concerned" about the case of a minority scholar charged with separatism and a recent increase in the arrests of activists and...
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03.05.14China Charges Prominent Uighur Professor with Separatism
Reuters
The government’s case against Ilham Tohti is the latest sign of its hardening stance on dissent in Xinjiang, where unrest in the past year has killed more than 100, including several police, according to state media.
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01.27.14China Accuses Uighur Intellectual of Separatism for His Advocacy Work
New York Times
The news comes at a time of intensifying bloodshed in Xinjiang despite a growing security presence by Chinese personnel.
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01.25.14Ilham Tohti’s Arrest Demonstrates China’s Renewed Hard Line on Xinjiang
Lowy Institute Interpreter
Economist Tohti was reportedly arrested after 30 police raided his apartment, confiscating documents, books and hard drives. He is most likely to be charged with ‘endangering state security,’ which carries heavy penalties including life imprisonment.
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01.18.14China’s Detention of Uighur Professor Ilham Tohti Worries U.S.
Los Angeles Times
The U.S. government and human rights activists are voicing concern about the detention of a professor who has been an outspoken advocate for China’s Uighur minority group.