China sentences Uyghur scholar to life imprisonment

According to a US-based rights organisation citing a Chinese government source, China has sentenced a prominent Uyghur academic to life in jail for “endangering state security”. Rights activists claim that China has launched a widespread detention campaign against Uyghurs and committed other violations such forced sterilisation and cultural suppression, which have been referred to as “genocide” by certain government agencies, including the US State Department. China vehemently refutes these allegations. Rahile Dawut, 57, lost her appeal against her initial conviction from December 2018, according to a statement from the Dui Hua Foundation. “This is believed to be the first time that a reliable source in the Chinese government has confirmed the sentence of life imprisonment,” it added in last week’s statement. An inquiry by facsimile for comment was not immediately answered by China’s state council, or cabinet. In the secretive legal system of China, conviction rates in court are 99.9%, and acquittals are uncommon. Dawut was an esteemed professor at the College of Humanities at Xinjiang University as well as an expert in cultural anthropology and the ethnography of Uyghur folklore before she was imprisoned. She had been imprisoned since December 2017 in Xinjiang, a province in northwest China where Beijing has been accused of violating the rights of the primarily Muslim Uyghur ethnic minority, a charge it vigorously contests. “The sentencing … is a cruel tragedy, a great loss for the Uyghur people, and for all who treasure academic freedom,” said John Kamm, executive director of the Dui Hua Foundation. “I call for her immediate release and safe return to her family.” More than 300 Uyghur intellectuals have been detained, arrested, or imprisoned by Chinese authorities since 2016, the organisation continued. Dawut joins that list. She collaborated with numerous eminent Western institutions, including Harvard and Cambridge universities, which have demanded her release. The purported mass imprisonment of Uighurs peaked in 2018, according to some Xinjiang specialists, but violations have continued and forced labour has become more prevalent. “I worry about my mother every single day,” said Dawut’s daughter, Akeda Pulati, who is based in Seattle. “The thought of my innocent mother having to spend her life in prison brings unbearable pain,” she added, in a statement released by Dui Hua Foundation. “China, show your mercy and release my innocent mother.” (With agency inputs)