Following unconfirmed reports this week that Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti has been secretly tried for Xinjiang separatism, his wife Guzaili Nu’er spoke to The Telegraph about the silence surrounding his case, and its impact on their two children. From Tom Phillips:
In an interview with The Telegraph, Guzaili Nu’er, the academic’s wife, said she had been allowed no contact with her husband since he was wrestled into custody in front of his children.
“Why are they doing this? Does China not have laws?” she said. “Why won’t they tell his family what is happening?”
“It has been more than five months since Ilham was taken away and I have not heard a single word from him. All I can do is wait.”
[…] Gardner Bovingdon, a Xinjiang expert from Indiana University, said Prof Tohti had “been facing state suspicion and occasional house arrest for years”.
However, his current detention was a dramatic escalation underlining how Beijing no longer believed it could convince the majority of Uighurs that Communist Party rule benefited them, Prof Bovingdon said. [Source]
