On the occasion of the 10th anniversary the imprisonment of the Uyghur professor of economics Ilham Tohti (January 15, 2014), the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) called on Germany to step up its efforts to secure his release. “Ilham Tohti dared to criticize the Chinese government’s misguided nationalities policy in East Turkestan. At the same time, he made specific suggestions to improve the living conditions of the Uyghur people. Instead of supporting him and his ideas, the Communist Party of China (CPC) had reacted in the same way as it often does when its claim to truth is questioned: with intimidation and state violence,” explained Hanno Schedler, STP expert on genocide prevention and the Responsibility to Protect. “Germany and like-minded states must not be fooled by the charm offensive of the Chinese government, which is vying for investments. They should use every opportunity to demand the release of Ilham Tohti and other political prisoners.” They will soon be able to do that at the United Nations in Geneva. The Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review on the human rights situation in China will take place on January 23.

On September 23, 2014, Tohti had been sentenced to life imprisonment after a two-day show trial for alleged ‘separatism’. Prior to this, he had already been under house arrest multiple times. The reasons for the judgment mentioned Tohti’s criticism of the Chinese government’s nationality policy, his interviews with foreign media, and the founding of his website uighurbiz.net. “The absurdity of the accusations shows that the Chinese state is doing everything it can to suppress constructive criticism and to silence people who try to build bridges – like Ilham Tohti did,” Schedler added. With his sober scientific analyses, he had shown how the concerns of the Uyghur population are disregarded by the Chinese government, and how the Uyghurs are systematically discriminated against in the labor market. The economics professor, who taught in Beijing, had also made concrete proposals to improve the living conditions of the Uyghur people and to further a dialogue between the Uyghurs and the Han Chinese. 

The Chinese government has been committing crimes of genocide since 2017 – with a combination of re-education camps, long prison sentences, family separations, by sending Uyghur children to state boarding schools, by destroying mosques, shrines and cemeteries, by means of forced labor and by forcibly sterilizing Uyghur women.

Ilham Tohti is now 54 years old. His family was not allowed to visit him in prison for years. There is no current information about his state of health. Among other awards, Tohti was honored with the Human Rights Prize of the City of Weimar in 2017 and the Sakharov Prize of the European Parliament in 2019. A group of more than 180 politicians and China-expert nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize 2024.