Dissident Uighur Scholar Detained in China

Jan. 16, 2014 5:18 a.m. ET

This file photo from February 2013 shows Ilham Tohti, an outspoken scholar of China’s Turkic Uighur ethnic minority, who was detained by Chinese authorities on Wednesday. Associated Press

SHANGHAI—Chinese authorities have detained a dissident scholar and member of the country’s Uighur minority who is well-known for calling on Beijing to address one of its most complex ethnic challenges.
Ilham Tohti was taken by police Wednesday afternoon during a raid at the family’s home in Beijing, according to his wife, Guzaili Nu’er. Ms. Nu’er said police seized four computers, cellphones and passports, plus printed and electronic materials in a search that lasted more than six hours.
A spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry accused Mr. Tohti of unspecified crimes and said his case will be dealt with according to the law.
“To crack down on crimes is the duty entrusted by the constitution and law to the public security organs,” spokesman Hong Lei said at a regularly scheduled briefing Thursday. “Ilham is under suspicion of committing crimes and violating laws, and the public security organ put him in criminal detention according to law.”

Guzaili Nu’er, wife of Ilham Tohti, left, spoke as Mr. Tohti’s mother cried at her house in Beijing on Thursday. Associated Press

It wasn’t clear whether Mr. Tohti has been charged or has had access to a lawyer.
In interviews and blog posts, the economics professor who has taught at Beijing’s Minzu University has challenged Beijing on the sensitive issue of its policies in regions like Xinjiang, a far-western area home to the largely Muslim Uighur minority. He has said officials are partly to blame for disaffecting minority populations. He has been detained in the past and has said he is subject to continuous police surveillance.
Three members of a Uighur family died in October in a fiery crash of their car near Beijing’s Tiananmen Square—which officials labeled a terrorist act—that also killed two tourists and injured 40. Mr. Tohti was quoted then as saying the official story needed to be understood in context. “From the evidence that has been released about this family in the car, they were more like self-immolators who felt they had been wronged and wanted to release their anger,” he told the Los Angeles Times, alluding to ethnic Tibetans who have set themselves on fire to protest Beijing’s control of their ancestral areas.
Persistent antigovernment violence in Xinjiang as well as in Tibetan areas raise sticky questions for Beijing. Minority ethnic groups make up a tiny part of China’s population but are spread over a third of the country, including along strategic border areas.
Beijing’s strategy in recent years of combining a heavy police presence with heavy investment has done little to stem violence. In Xinjiang, clashes appear to have increased in the past two years, according to accounts from monitoring groups.
Ms. Nu’er said she isn’t sure what might have triggered Wednesday’s police raid but said her husband had led a peaceful existence. “I don’t know. I go to work every day. He taught two classes every week. His mother has been here for two months, so he spent time with her at home,” she said.
She said she returned home Wednesday to find more than 15 officers in her home but that her husband had already been taken away.
“Their attitude was bad but they did not say anything, just asking me to cooperate with their work,” Ms. Nu’er said by telephone. She said police presented a search warrant from authorities in Xinjiang but she refused to sign it.
In mid-2009 Mr. Tohti was held for around six weeks without charge during a flare-up of violence in Xinjiang between members of the country’s predominant Han ethnic group and Uighurs.
Last year he was barred from boarding a plane in Beijing to accept a teaching position at Indiana University, in an episode criticized by the U.S. government and others, though his daughter was permitted to go to the U.S.
–Bob Davis in Beijing contributed to this article.
Write to James T. Areddy at james.areddy@wsj.com

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