MCLC: communique on arrest of Ilham Tohti

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Florent Villard <feinanfei at gmail.com>
Subject: communique on arrest of Ilham Tohti
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Communique "Arrest of Professor Ilham Tohti" (2014/02/27)

We have learned of the formal arrest of Ilham Tohti, renowned professor of
economics at the Central Nationalities University (中央民族大学). He now
stands 
accused of attempted separatism, a crime punishable, in the worst of
cases, by the death. Although Professor Tohti regularly speaks out to
defend the rights of the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang and to question the
central administration’s policy in this region, he has never approved of
violence, nor has he defended the cause of independence of Xinjiang or any
other form of separatism. Ilham Tohti’s  criticisms and propositions are
based on his academic research which he has carried out with the utmost
rigour. Indeed, through his website “Uyghurs online,” he has worked for a
number of years towards creating a space for dialogue between the Han
majority and the Uyghurs. Through student exchanges, co-advised PhDs and
joint research projects, our university has enjoyed a long-standing
partnership with the Central Nationalities University, an institution
renowned for its academic excellence. For all these reasons, we wish to
draw attention to the worrying situation of this colleague. This affair
constitutes an inacceptable violation of the intellectual freedom of
academics, and more generally, of freedom of expression.

Gregory Lee, Chair of the Department of Chinese, University of Lyon (Jean
Moulin)
Claire Dodane, Director, the Institute for Transtextual and Transcultural
Studies (IETT), University of Lyon (Jean Moulin)
Florent Villard, Deputy Director, the Institute for Transtextual and
Transcultural Studies (IETT), University of Lyon (Jean Moulin)

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Florent VILLARD
Département des Etudes Chinoises
Institut des Etudes Transtextuelles et Transculturelles (EA 4186)
Université de Lyon - Jean Moulin Lyon 3
http://univ-lyon3.academia.edu/FlorentVillard