MCLC: self-defeating arrest of Ilham Tohti

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: pjmooney <pjmooney at me.com>
Subject: self-defeating arrest of Ilham Tohti
****************************************************

Source: National Interest (1/23/14):
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/beijings-self-defeating-arrest-ilham
-tohti-9756

Beijing's Self-Defeating Arrest of Ilham Tohti
By Julia Famularo 

On the afternoon of January 15, Chinese authorities arrested prominent
Uyghur intellectual and Minzu University economics professor Ilham Tohti.
Over twenty public security and police officers from Beijing and the
Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) searched his apartment and
confiscated thirty-eight bags of documents as well as computers and cell
phones. His elderly mother was also detained by police, but returned home
late that evening. At least six of Professor Tohti’s Uyghur students were
reportedly detained as well. The ‘Uyghurs Online
<http://www.uyghurbiz.net/>’ Twitter account posted his wife Guzelnur’s
detailed eyewitness account of the police search and arrest. “My husband,”
she proclaimed, “has long served as an advocate for the legal rights and
interests of the Uyghur people.”

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei stated the following day that
“Ilham [Tohti] is suspected of breaking the law. The public security
organs have detained him in accordance with the law. The relevant
departments will now deal with him in accordance with the law.”

A Dangerous Mind?

Chinese view Minzu University (中央民族大学) as the nation’s most renowned
Place to study the fifty-six officially recognized ethnic groups in the
People’s Republic of China. Authorities tout it as ethnically, culturally
and religiously diverse. Nevertheless, official appreciation of diversity
does not extend to the classroom. Neither professors nor students are
encouraged to express any viewpoint that deviates from the official party
line. Ethno-religious minorities in particular are expected to subvert any
individual or collective sense of political identity or historical
consciousness that separates them from their Han classmates. Displaying
‘love for the Chinese Motherland’ is strongly encouraged, but ‘local
nationalism’ is condemned.

Ilham Tohti penned a contemplative autobiographical essay entitled, “My
Ideals and the Career Path I Have Chosen (我的理想和事业选择之路)
<http://goo.gl/ByWJDx>.” Written in Chinese, the language and tone of the
piece is meant to appeal to a broad audience, rather than simply the
Uyghur and scholarly communities. He reveals that many of his family
members have served with honor in the military as well as public security
apparatus, and laments that his cause has made their lives difficult.

In 1994, Ilham Tohti began advanced graduate work at the Minzu University
Economics Research Institute. There, he studied not only the economy of
Xinjiang, but also foreign economies. His insatiable curiosity and love of
learning spurred him to travel extensively to such places as South Korea,
Russia, Pakistan and Central Asia. Already fluent in Uyghur and Chinese,
he also studied a wide range of foreign languages, including English,
Korean, Japanese, Urdu and Russian. His academic interests expanded into
sociology, ethnicity and geopolitics. He examined American and European
case studies to discover how other countries grappled with ethnic/racial
and social problems.

He asserted that many people in Xinjiang are nostalgic for the Hu
Yaobang-Song Hanliang era. Upon his appointment to the position of Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary in 1980, Hu Yaobang spearheaded
unprecedented opening and reform by enacting policies that revitalized
minority cultures and cultivated minority cadres. Song Hanliang was
subsequently appointed CCP Party Secretary in Xinjiang in 1985. Ilham
Tohti argues that during this period, there existed relative “equality
among ethnic groups” and a more “relaxed political atmosphere.” Although
people used the relative freedom to voice their grievances openly, he
asserts that greater societal trust and fewer government restraints
actually fostered “strong social cohesion” in Xinjiang. The implication is
that political openness does not necessarily result in social instability
or chaos. Internal and external factors nevertheless exacerbated feelings
of discontent among Uyghurs and Tibetans by the late 1980s. The Tian’anmen
student movement as well as ethno-religious upheaval ultimately led
Beijing to reevaluate these liberalized social policies and conclude that
they had failed.

Ilham Tohti founded the website ‘Uyghurs Online’ at the end of 2005. He
envisioned it as a platform for cultural and social exchange between the
Han and Uyghur peoples. According to Ilham Tohti, we “should not fear
disputes and disagreements, but rather the silence and suspicion that
exist within hatred.”

Despite the political and cultural capital he accrued as well as the
social and business relationships he built during his travels, Tohti
writes that following the 5 July 2009 unrest, he has avoided accepting
foreign funding, whether from governments or NGOs. He remarks that Han
Chinese scholars cannot imagine the pressure and challenges that their
Uyghur colleagues face in the current political and financial environment.
Last year, Ilham Tohti accepted a position as a visiting scholar at
Indiana University. He planned to bring his teenage daughter with him to
the United States. However, he was stopped at the airport and interrogated
by Chinese security officers, who barred him from leaving the country. His
daughter was allowed to continue on to Bloomington.

Crime and Punishment

Chinese authorities have not yet officially stated any crimes with which
they plan to charge Ilham Tohti. Under Chinese criminal law, police can
hold individuals accused of serious crimes in secret locations for up to
six months. Authorities are not required to inform family members of their
whereabouts, and may deny access to attorneys. One may speculate that
authorities will eventually charge Ilham Tohti with “inciting public
subversion of state power” or “inciting ethnic separatism,” either of
which could result in years of incarceration.

The Chinese state-run tabloid, Global Times, published a harsh editorial
on Ilham Tohti. The newspaper mocked the West for framing news stories as
further evidence of Uyghur repression. Moreover, it strongly insinuated
that the economics professor is a Western puppet as well as the “brains”
behind multiple incidents of Uyghur unrest. The newspaper subsequently
stated that “authorities should keep the public updated with any progress
into the investigation, and strictly follow legal procedures, so as to
leave no space for outsiders to raise any questions. The law will draw a
fair conclusion on Tohti’s alleged crime. But it is strange that a person
like him can still stay in the university lecturing students.” The
editorial appeared one day after an official announcement that Beijing
will  
<http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-01/17/content_17240295.htm>double
the XUAR public-security bureau
<http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-01/17/content_17240295.htm>’s
budget 
<http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-01/17/content_17240295.htm>. This
year the region will receive 2 million RMB ($330,420) to combat terrorism.
An increasingly tense political and security environment, combined with
the government’s lack of tolerance for recent human rights advocacy
efforts, suggest that Beijing wishes to make an example out of Ilham
Tohti. It thus appears unlikely that the government will make any specific
details of his case public or grant him a fair trial.

The U.S. State Department expressed
<http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2014/01/219936.htm> deep concern over
the arrest of Professor Tohti and his students. Spokesperson Jen Psaki
called the “detention of Mr. Tohti, who has been outspoken in support of
human rights for China’s ethnic Uighur citizens... part of a disturbing
pattern of arrests and detentions of public interest lawyers, Internet
activists, journalists, religious leaders and others who peacefully
challenge official Chinese policies and actions.” The outgoing
<http://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/tohti-01172014201818.html>European
Union Ambassador 
<http://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/tohti-01172014201818.html> to
China, Marcus Ederer, also expressed his concerns over continued
human-rights abuses in China.

This writer consequently reached out to Human Rights Watch for comment.
Asia Division Senior Researcher Nicholas Bequelin stated that
the Chinese government should immediately free Ilham Tohti, whose only
crime is to have voiced moderate and legitimate criticism of Chinese
policies in Xinjiang, mostly from a scholarly perspective. His arrest is
an indirect admission of guilt by a government that knows that it is
engaging in gross and systematic human rights abuses in the region, and in
justifying its hardline policies by manipulating and exaggerating the
threat of terrorism. Jailing Tohti will only serve to demonstrate that it
is futile to try to engage objectively and rationally with the government
on Uighur issues, a policy that ultimately drives dissent underground and
makes radicalization more appealing.

He added that Human Rights Watch is disappointed by Beijing’s “refusal...
to look objectively at the roots of disenfranchisement and ethnic
polarization in Xinjiang.” Thus, two extremely different portraits of the
accused scholar emerge in the public sphere. On the one hand, a moderate
Uyghur intellectual, a courageous man who stands for ethnic equality and
social harmony. On the other hand, a Uyghur Professor James Moriarty, a
criminal mastermind who has used the facade of academic scholarship to
foment social unrest.

Sense and Sensibility

In 1945, Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong stated that “Communists
must be ready at all times to stand up for the truth
<http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-3/mswv
3_25.htm>, because truth is in the interests of the people; Communists
must be ready at all times to correct their mistakes, because mistakes are
against the interests of the people.” Yet, to borrow a page from the
Michel Foucault philosophical playbook, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
has spent well over half a century attempting to construct authoritative
paradigms of ‘truth’ and ‘knowledge’ in Chinese society. By shaping the
public discourse on which issues are acceptable to discuss, and which
‘truths’ are acceptable to believe, the CCP attempts to police and control
the production and dissemination of knowledge. When articulate
intellectuals such as Ilham Tohti produce and disseminate new ideas or an
alternative vision of the future that conflicts with the CCP worldview, it
threatens the Party’s official version of ‘truth.’ Beijing fears social
instability, but is loath to admit that its own policies lie at the root
of the problem. Leaders are also extremely hesitant to experiment with new
policies that they believe may potentially erode their legitimacy or
otherwise decrease the power of the party-state over time.

Ilham Tohti has condemned counterproductive policies causing instability
in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The failure to adequately
protect religious, linguistic and cultural freedoms not only hurts Uyghur
and other Central Asian minorities, but also threatens the very stability
and legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party. If the government truly
wants to “stand up for the truth” and correct mistakes, then it must
listen to the voices of the people and heed their words well.

Julia Famularo is a research affiliate at the Project 2049 Institute and
former editor-in-chief of the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs.