In Febraury, the New York Times published an article about Ilham Tohti, an Uyghur economics professor and scholar who was indicted for inciting separatism by critiquing Chinese policy. The article described “charges of separatism [in China as] notoriously Kafkaesque and especially difficult to defend.”
Yesterday, PEN American Center held an event at the American Museum of Natural History at which Tohti’s daughter Jewher Ulham accepted the PEN Expression Award in place of her father and delivered a moving speech about freedom of expression, along with two members of the Pussy Riots and Salman Rushdie.
The only weapon her father had wielded was “words — spoken, written, distributed and posted,” Ulham, a student at Indiana University, told hundreds assembled at the American Museum of Natural History, including Rushdie, Morrison, Robert Caro and Martin Amis.
“This is all he has ever had at his disposal and all that he has ever needed. And this is what China finds so threatening.”
Read more here . . .
