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Word For Wife On Jailed Uyghur Writer's Fate
2006.06.19 RFA
Tohti Tunyaz. Photo: courtesy Tohti Tunyaz.
HONG KONG—The wife of a minority Muslim Uyghur
writer, jailed by a Chinese court in 1999 for "stealing
state secrets," says authorities have never officially
told her of her husband's fate or whereabouts in more
than seven years.
Tohti Tunyaz, who wrote under the pen-name Tohti
Muzart, was sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment by the
Urumqi Intermediate People’s Court on March 10, 1999,
for "stealing state secrets" and engaging in "splittist
activities" after he made a trip home from Japan to
complete his doctoral thesis, his wife said.
But Rebiye Tohti, who still lives in Japan, told RFA
she has never been notified of his arrest, conviction,
or sentencing.
"I was so frustrated," she said. "I have some
knowledge of Chinese law. The law clearly indicates
that when someone is arrested, the authorities should
inform their family and relatives within 24 hours. But
the authorities secretly arrested my husband, and for
a couple of months they informed nobody."
"The officials told me to my face: 'We just didn't
want to tell you'. I said to them: 'There is the law,
and I will sue you,' and they replied: ‘You can go
anywhere you want to sue us.' Since then, nobody will
talk to me."
Tohti Tunyaz's wife
Dismissed by officials
She said she herself had finally followed the trail
to the Urumqi National Security Bureau, which
dismissed her complaint.
"The officials told me to my face: 'We just didn't
want to tell you.' I said to them: 'There is the law,
and I will sue you,' and they replied: ‘You can go
anywhere you want to sue us.' Since then, nobody will
talk to me. I have been through several courts, but to
no avail."
She said she hasn't been allowed to visit her husband
in eight years and still hasn't been officially
notified of his whereabouts.
"I have been seeking help since then. It has been
eight years now, that I haven't seen him," she said.
Rebiye Tohti said she had even succeeded in attracting
the notice of China’s Supreme People’s Court in
Beijing, where her husband’s appeal had already failed
several years earlier.
"His professors and I went through so many places, but
they couldn't help. His Japanese lawyer even got the
Beijing Supreme Court to send a letter ordering the
local authorities to reopen his case, but the local
authorities never did."
Sentenced on thesis trip
Tohti Tunyaz is currently serving an 11- year prison
sentence in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region No.
3 Prison because of his research into Uyghur history.
Research into Uyghur history and culture remains
highly sensitive as Beijing attempts to consolidate
the restive region, where Chinese rule is highly
unpopular.
Detained on Feb. 11, 1998 during a visit to Xinjiang
to research his thesis, he was charged with "inciting
separatism" and "illegally acquiring state secrets."
After his sentence was handed down in Urumqi, he
appealed to a higher court, where he was sentenced in
October 2000 to five years imprisonment for "illegally
procuring state secrets" plus seven years for inciting
“splittism."
His sentence was consolidated to 11 years, with two
years’ subsequent deprivation of political rights.
During his trial, the court referred to documents he
had obtained while in Xinjiang and to a book
advocating "ethnic separatism" called The Inside Story
of the Silk Road, which he was accused of publishing
in Japan.
His professor in Japan, Sato Tsugitaka, has said the
so-called "state secrets" comprised a list of
50-year-old documents provided by an official
librarian.
Tsugitaka also said Tohti Tunyaz hadn't published any
books advocating ethnic separatism, according to the
rights group Amnesty International.
A January 2001 article published in China’s national
security newsletter alleged that Tohti Tunyaz had "turned
his back on his homeland" by pursuing his doctorate in
Japan, where he "came under the influence of Western
liberal thinking" and "engaged in Xinjiang minority
splittist activities."
Uyghur activists have for decades sought autonomy in
what is now Xinjiang, which China formally annexed in
1955.
Chinese authorities have accused them of terrorism and
blamed them for more than 260 terrorist acts in
Xinjiang over the last 20 years in which 160 people
have died and 440 have been injured.
But human rights groups say China has used its support
for the U.S.-led war on terror to justify a wider
crackdown on Uyghurs characterized by arbitrary
arrests, closed trials, and the use of the death
penalty.
Original reporting by RFA’s Uyghur service. Director:
Dolkun Kamberi. Written in English by Luisetta Mudie
and edited by Sarah Jackson-Han..
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