{"id":637,"date":"2017-12-08T08:06:58","date_gmt":"2017-12-08T08:06:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/?p=637"},"modified":"2017-12-08T08:06:58","modified_gmt":"2017-12-08T08:06:58","slug":"jailed-uyghur-scholar-earns-freedom-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/?p=637","title":{"rendered":"Jailed Uyghur Scholar Earns Freedom Award"},"content":{"rendered":"
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** HOLD FOR STORY CHINA LAW FIRM BY CHRISTOPHER BODEEN ** FILE – In this Feb. 4, 2013 file photo, Ilham Tohti, an outspoken scholar of China’s Turkic Uighur ethnic minority, speaks during an interview at his home in Beijing, China. (AP Photo\/Andy Wong)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A jailed Uyghur professor was honored Thursday at a ceremony in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n

Ilham Tohti was named the winner of Liberal International\u2019s Prize for Freedom.<\/p>\n

Liberal International gives the award once each year to a person whom it says has worked to improve human rights and political freedoms.<\/p>\n

A rights group fighting for Tohti\u2019s release from prison accepted the prize in his place.<\/p>\n

Tohti, an economics professor, has spoken repeatedly about what he considered religious and cultural persecution of the mostly Muslim Uyghur ethnic minority in China\u2019s northwest.<\/p>\n

A Chinese court charged Tohti in September 2014 with promoting ethnic separatism. He was sentenced to life in prison after a two-day trial.<\/p>\n

Following his jailing, the United States, European Union and the United Nations called for his release.<\/p>\n

Liberal International, or LI, is a group of 100 liberal and progressive parties. It was formed in 1947.<\/p>\n

LI Human Rights Committee chair, Markus Loening, said at the ceremony that Tohti had fought for democracy and rule of law in China.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Chinese government should feel ashamed,\u201d Loening said. \u201cIt is not protecting the rights of its citizens but instead putting them behind bars as soon as they speak up for human rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marie Holzman helped to set up the Ilham Tohti Initiative following his jailing. She said on Thursday that receiving the award in his place was, in her words, \u201cconfirmation that the Chinese government can no longer sustain the pretense that no one cares about Ilham Tohti.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tohti\u2019s daughter, Jewher Ilham, spoke by video to the gathering at Thursday\u2019s ceremony. She described her father as a man \u201cknown for his moderate positions and his desire to see different ethnic groups living together peacefully.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jewher lives in the American state of Indiana.<\/p>\n

In October 2016, Tohti received the Martin Ennals Award. The prize is a joint project of 10 rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.<\/p>\n

The United Nations\u2019 human rights chief attended the ceremony honoring Tohti. China protested the attendance, saying the UN chief had \u201cconfused right and wrong\u201d and \u201cblatantly supported terrorists\u201d by going to the event.<\/p>\n

Radio Free Asia reported this story. VOA Learning English adapted the report with additional information from the Associated Press. George Grow was the editor.<\/p>\n

RFA and VOA are each part of the U.S. government-supported Broadcasting Board of Governors.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/learningenglish.voanews.com\/a\/4145803.html<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A jailed Uyghur professor was honored Thursday at a ceremony in the Netherlands. Ilham Tohti was named the winner of Liberal International\u2019s Prize for Freedom. Liberal International gives the award once each year to a person whom it says has worked to improve human rights and political freedoms. A rights group fighting for Tohti\u2019s release […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chinas-uyghur-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=637"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":639,"href":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637\/revisions\/639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}