Daughter of jailed Uygur activist Ilham Tohti accepts EU prize in his name
- Jewher Tohti urges members of European Parliament to hold Beijing accountable, as she receives Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought on father’s behalf
- Chinese government sentenced Ilham Tohti to life in prison for separatism in 2014
The daughter of Uygur rights advocate and academic Ilham Tohti, currently serving a life sentence in China, received the highest EU human rights accolade on his behalf on Wednesday.
“This is not about fighting China, this is about human rights,” Jewher Tohti said at the award ceremony for the 2019 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, held in the European Parliament in the French city of Strasbourg.
“To the members of parliament, use your laws to hold Chinese government officials accountable,” she added.
China is the European Union’s second trading partner by volume, but relations have been tested by unrest in Hong Kong and by the country’s treatment of the Uygurs and other people from ethnic minorities in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region.
According to the EU legislature, Chinese authorities have placed more than 1 million Uygurs in internment camps since April 2017, where they are forced to renounce their ethnic identity and religious beliefs and swear loyalty to the Chinese government.