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Uighur Scholar from Japan Held in China Prison
September 25, 2002
KAZUYOSHI NISHIKURA
The prisoner smiled at his
13-year-old son through a window in the hot meeting
room of the No. 3 prison in Urumqi, the provincial
capital of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, one
day in August.
"You've grown up a lot!" 42-year-old historian Tohti
Tunyaz said to his son, who had traveled to northwest
China from Japan after being separated from his father
for more than four years. The inmate, an ethnic Uighur,
was moved to tears seeing that his son had grown
taller than himself.
Tohti, a University of Tokyo graduate student who was
sentenced to 11 years in prison for inciting
separatism, has received support from international
human rights groups, including Amnesty International.
Those calling for his release have criticized the
Japanese government for ignoring his case.
In early 1998, Tohti was busy writing a doctoral
dissertation on China's policies toward ethnic
minorities. But after he visited his home in the
autonomous region to do research, he disappeared.
Several months later, his Japanese friends received
word that he had been detained on charges of "inciting
separatism" and "illegally acquiring state secrets."
These friends could not believe it, recalling that
Tohti was well-known for criticizing the Uighur
independence movement.
Tohti was sentenced to 11 years by the Urumqi
Intermediate People's Court in March 1999. He pleaded
not guilty, but his conviction was upheld on appeal
the following February.
It was not until early this year that news of his
imprisonment circulated in some quarters in Japan.
Officials of the prestigious University of Tokyo kept
the matter secret, claiming Tohti would suffer if an
appeal was waged through the news media.
"If my husband were a real believer in independence
from China for his home region, he would be ready to
risk his life," said Tohti's 37-year-old wife, Rabiya,
who lives in Japan with their son and 4-year-old
daughter. "But the Chinese court's charges are unjust
and intolerable. I should have appealed to the public
earlier."
Industrial designer Yasuko Yamaguchi accompanied
Tohti's son to Urumqi. She helps the family and acts
as a guarantor for them in Japan. They also have the
support of Tohti's two professors at the University of
Tokyo, Tsugutaka Sato and Mio Kishimoto.
"We have gone too far to give up now," Yamaguchi said
of Tohti's case.
Rabiya added that, "Without these three, we cannot
continue to survive in Japan. "Most Japanese appear to
be kind, but when the time comes to do something, they
do nothing."
Both Sato and Kishimoto asked the university to renew
Tohti's doctoral student status in the school of
humanities during his imprisonment.
"Tohti's freedom of research as a scholar must be
maintained," Sato said.
In February 2000, the two professors persuaded the U.N.
Human Rights Committee to take up the case, saying the
Chinese charges were based on a "misrepresentation of
the facts." They later clashed with Chinese
authorities over the allegations at the U.N. Working
Group on Arbitrary Detention.
The Chinese authorities claimed that Tohti "illegally
acquired huge state secrets" with financial support
from overseas "separatist groups" and "anti-China
organizations" in Japan.
They also accused Tohti of writing and publishing a
book titled "The Inside Story of the Silk Road" in
1998 that advocates "ethnic separatism."
In challenging the allegations at the U.N. committee,
Sato denied Tohti published the book, adding he
obtained documents for purely academic research
purposes and his scholarly activities have no
political agenda.
At the end of last year, the committee concluded that
the Chinese court's sentence violates Tohti's freedom
of thought and speech by extended interpretation of "state
secrets" and that it violates Article 16 of the U.N.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights and stipulations
in the International Covenants on Human Rights.
The committee's official view that Tohti was
arbitrarily detained is nonbinding since China did not
ratify the treaties. But in August, London-based
Amnesty International chose Tohti as a featured
Prisoner of Conscience at the request of its Japanese
arm.
In contrast to a growing campaign to free Tohti in the
international community, support in Japan has failed
to gather steam.
The Japanese arm of Amnesty International, set up in
1970, is short of funds as a result of shrinking
revenues, including donations, and its membership has
decreased to some 7,000 from a peak of around 10,000
in the 1990s.
"Although globalization has made the international
community closer, Japanese, particularly the nation's
youth, are increasingly inclined to avoid deep
commitments to prevent human rights abuse in other
countries," said Makoto Teranaka, secretary general of
Amnesty International Japan.
The government has little to say on the case.
"The Japanese government has no say in (China's)
domestic affairs," said an official at the Foreign
Ministry's China and Mongolia Division in charge of
human rights. "The issue of ethnic minorities is a raw
nerve in China. Doing nothing could be useful for (Tohti)."
Yamaguchi and the two professors are angry over the
ministry's apathetic attitude.
Japan and China have agreed to hold bilateral human
rights dialogue since Japan ceased pushing China to
improve its record at the U.N. Human Rights Committee.
Such talks, which would provide the best place to
discuss Tohti, have not been held in two years. Asked
why, the Foreign Ministry official said there as been
"no coordination of arrangements."
The Japan Times: Sept. 25, 2002
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