Ilham Tohti, a Uyghur economist and human rights activist, has been in a Chinese jail for the past 5 years in the Xinjiang region. The European Parliament has awarded him the 2019 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought for his work trying to heal the divide between the Han Chinese and the Uyghur community.

EU politics

Sakharov Prize

human rights

Sakharov Prize 2019: The fight of imprisoned Uyghur activist Ilham Tohti

https://api.multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/documents/20125/5556833/N01-PUB-191209-SAKH-EN.srt

"Being Uyghur nowadays means not being able to contact

This is what it means to almost all Uyghur families around the world.

Everyone at least has one to ten family members

locked up in concentration camps or disappeared."

Ilham Tohti is one of those jailed Uyghurs.

He was a prominent voice in the Muslim community until his arrest in 2013.

with his then-18-year-old daughter Jewher.

"Since 2017 I have not heard about my father.

I don't know if he's still in the same prison, if he's even alive."

The Chinese government accuses Tohti of being a separatist and an extremist,

In 2014, he was sentenced to life in prison by a Chinese court.

"My father is nothing close to an extremist.

My father is nothing close to someone who's advocating for violence.

The only weapon my father ever, ever used is his pen and his words."

Teng Biao is a human rights activist and friend of Tohti.

and he's one of the most important people

bridging Han Chinese people and Uyghur people.

He's telling the world that Uyghurs have human rights.

The Uyghurs are not calling for terrorism or separatism."

a year marked by bloody ethnic conflict in the Uyghur region of Xinjiang

when the Muslim minority revolted against police brutality.

"Currently, there are at least two million

and the children and families were separated,

What's happening in Xinjiang, or East Turkestan,

is the biggest humanitarian disaster in the 21st century."

According to international rights organisations,

the Chinese government has been silently building internment camps across the region

officially to protect the country against separatism and terrorism.

Beijing initially denied the existence of internment camps,

but now describes them as "vocational training schools" to fight terrorism.

including political, cultural, economic, religious rights,

all rights have been continuously violated by the Chinese Communist Party.

Uyghur autonomous region, is like an open-air prison.

is trying to eradicate the Uyghur identity completely."

"Europe should have a clear message to the Chinese government

that these kinds of concentration camps, the torture, the disappearances,

the extrajudicial killings are not accepted."

In September, the European Parliament awarded Ilham Tohti

with the 2019 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

"The first step is to tell the truth, to tell the world

and tell the world who is Ilham Tohti and what he has been doing.

So, to give him an award is a good thing.

Across the world, people are rising up to condemn China's actions

"I wish my father can be released. I wish he can be safe,

I wish all the other families, just like me and my family,

that their family members can be safe, and healthy, and alive.

And I wish people just can live in peace without hurting each other."