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A Uighur Story(1)
Prepared by UTG
hakikatiz@yahoo.com
Strict media control hides the true facts of the
brutality of Chinese authorities in so called Chinese
Xinjiang Uighur Atonomous Region. The physical and
mental tortures of Uighur intilectuals should raise
the world attention.
Tohtaji Imin was not only an excelent lecturer of the
Literature Department of Kashgar Teachers’ College but
also a good writer and a person full of human kindness.
However, he died/killed, because of the communist
government’s brutallity towards Uighur intellectuals.
He was the author of a few books and dramas. One of
his dramas, My Son Listen to Me, played on stages all
over the Uighur Autonomous Region and was very popular
in the late 1980s. He was one of the authors of the
Uighur Language Dictionary published a few years ago
without including his name as an author because of his
political “crime”. It is surprising that there has no
news ever been found, about him, in any media so far.
His funeral was held quietly and there were not many
people brave enough to attend it.
Tohtaji graduated the Literature Department of Kashgar
Teachers’ College, in 1982, with outstanding results
and remained a Lecturer at the same department. He was
sent Beijing University, by the Kashgar Teachers’
College, to study for a graduate diploma in the
acadamic year 1985-1986. He was promoted to a position
of Lecturer in the year 1989. When there was a
demonstration, in Beijing in 1986, of Uighur students
against Nuclear Bomb Testing, Birth Control Policy and
Environmental Destruction in Xinjiang Uighur
Autonomous Region, he was one of the participants.
As a regular event, a few students organized an
anti-discrimination group at the university and it was
found that the group’s some reports were printed on
Tohtihaji’s printer. It was certain that the group
members were imprisoned immediately. At the same time,
Tohtihaji was caught and taken to Urumchi (Capital of
Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and 1500 km away
from Kashgar) to be questioned as though his crime was
severer than a men slaughter or a big drug dealer.
After 3 months of questioning and torture in water
prison day and night, he was half side paralyzed and
then released without any apologies. Though he was
found innocent by such a method of questioning,
Kashgar Teachers’ College authorities fired him and
announced that there would be severe punishmets for a
staff who would dare to help him financially or
emotionally. He had suffered from financial and mental
difficulties as he had not been visited or helped by
his friends and relatives. Moreover, his children were
not old enough to help him. He was deprived most of
his basic human rights. His friends scared even to
meet him and he had no money to buy his everyday
necessities, but he was insisting in living with hope.
His wife was a simple housewife and unable to tolerate
the financial and political hardship and left. This
was hurt him most, but it was caused by the
authorities. He had to be very careful for his speech
as to prevent more trouble. Any of his writings were
not accepted for publication.
In the year 1999, an unknown person gave him some
financial help and he was able to stay in a cheap
hospital to have simple medical treatment. He left the
hospital before his recovery. He was inhospitalized
again only for a few days before his death at the
Kashgar People’s Hospital in 2003.
Now, his three children have been suffering
financially and psychologically. Fearing to be
suspected, nobody might give a little help to
Tohtaji’s children. In which generation the harship
will end, no one knows. As long as the communist
party’s dictatorship continues, his generations will
be suffering all the time.
This is one of the many examples of the results of
Chinese government’s discriminatory policy towards
Uighur Intellectuals.
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