Ilham Tohti
Date of birth: 25 October 1969
Arrest: 14 January 2014
Imprisoned in: unknown
Accusation: “Separatism”
Verdict: Life imprisonment

The human rights activist Ilham Tohti was born on October 25, 1969 in Xinjiang. As an Economics professor, Ilham Tohti taught at the Faculty of Economics of the Central Nationalities University in Beijing. He graduated from the Northeast China Pedagogical University in Changchun, Jilin Province. Tohti is married and has two sons and a daughter. Since the beginning of 2014, the family man has been in prison for the second time. On September 23, 2014, the Intermediate People’s Court sentenced him to life imprisonment for “separatism” in a two-day sham trial. According to the statements of his daughter Jewher Ilham in an interview with Deutsche Welle, the family was last in contact with the imprisoned Economics professor in 2017. His current state of health and mental state is unknown. Tohti is believed to have been detained in the No. 1 Prison in Urumqi, Xinjiang Region, since December 12, 2014.

First arrest and conviction

After Tohti spoke out against China’s settlement policy in a radio interview in March 2009, he was arrested in the same month on charges of spreading separatist ideas. After bloggers Wang Lixiong and Tsering Woeser petitioned for his release, the Chinese government released him from prison in August 2009. However, Tohti’s and his family’s freedom of travel remained restricted. On January 15, 2014, Tohti was arrested again and finally sentenced to life imprisonment on September 23 of the same year. An application for appeal was unsuccessful. Seven of his former students are accused of working with him. They were therefore sentenced to prison terms of between three and eight years.

Background: Activism against the oppression of the Uyghurs

When Ilham Tohti launched the website “UyguhrOnline.com” at the end of 2005, he set himself the goal of drawing attention to the precarious situation of the Uyghurs in China and improving the relationship between Han Chinese and Uyghurs. Uyghurs suffer from political indoctrination, far-reaching surveillance measures, persecution and arbitrary arrests. About one million Uyghurs are in re-education camps. The Chinese government finally took the website offline in 2008, accusing it of stirring up separatism. In addition, according to the Chinese government, Tohti’s website provoked riots in July 2009 in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang. It is not possible to say with certainty how many people died in the unrest. It is assumed that there will be at least 150 people. The Uyghur World Congress reported 400 dead. The victims are both members of the Uyghur ethnic group and the Han Chinese.

International Awards

In the course of the award of the Sakharov Prize on 18 December 2019, which was accepted on his behalf by his daughter Yevher Ilham, she commented on the accusations in an interview with Deutsche Welle:

“My father never said a word about dividing the country. He never mentioned or used violence. Therefore, I can say with certainty that the accusations of the Chinese government are absolutely ridiculous.”

In addition to the Sakharov Prize of the European Parliament, Ilham Thoti has also received the Martin Ennals Award, the Human Rights Prize of the City of Weimar and the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize.

Tohti has been nominated for the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize. He was already on the shortlist for the prize in 2020 and 2023.

As of July 2024