cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/30516580
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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