International campaign launched to nominate Uygur scholar Ilham Tohti for the Nobel Peace Prize
- Tohti, identified with Beijing’s crackdown in Xinjiang, was sentenced in 2014 to life in prison on charges he sought to split China
- His daughter says she supports the campaign in part because ‘this could pressure the Chinese government to show proof of life’
An international campaign to nominate the jailed Uygur scholar Ilham Tohti for the Nobel Peace Prize was launched in Brussels on Monday, with his daughter saying the award could “bring pressure” on Beijing to show that her father is still alive.
Tohti, an outspoken ethnic Uygur economics professor, was sentenced to life in prison in 2014 on charges that he sought to split China. He was accused of promoting independence for Xinjiang on a Uygur- and Chinese-language website he managed, Uighurbiz.net, where he called for adjustment of China’s policy in the region.
He denied all the charges and has since become one of the most internationally recognised faces of Beijing’s crackdown in Xinjiang, the far-western Chinese region home to millions of ethnic Uygurs.
In 2019, he won the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, the top human rights award of the European Parliament. He was also nominated by US lawmakers for the Nobel Prize the same year.
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CCTV released video reportedly from Ilham Tohti’s class
“Ilham Tohti, with his activism, managed to give a voice to the Uygurs … He has been working for 20 years to promote dialogue and mutual understanding between them and other Chinese people,” read the EU statement on granting the award.