Activists and academics have sent an open letter to Czech President Petr Pavel, urging him to call on China to release Ilham Tohti and support his nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize in international fora.
Activists and academics from different countries, on 9 January 2025, urged Czech President Petr Pavel to advocate for the release of Uyghur economist and human rights advocate Ilham Tohti, who has been imprisoned in China since 2014. The appeal, spearheaded by Enver Can, President of the Ilham Tohti Initiative, also called for President Pavel’s support in promoting Tohti’s nomination for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize in international fora.
Ilham Tohti, a former Economics professor and one of the most prominent Uyghur intellectuals, has been recognized globally for his efforts to foster dialogue and understanding between Uyghurs and Han Chinese. Despite his peaceful and pragmatic approach, Tohti was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2014 after a trial widely condemned as unjust.
The appeal highlights Tohti’s commitment to nonviolence and his advocacy for harmonious cooperation between Uyghurs and Chinese authorities. His writings, marked by moderation and a focus on reconciliation, continue to inspire despite his incarceration.
The Ilham Tohti Initiative, based in Germany, noted that Tohti’s work has already received international recognition, including the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, both awarded in 2019. The initiative thanked the Czech Republic for its past support and called on President Pavel to further advocate Tohti’s cause.
The signatories of the appeal include Jewher Ilham, the daughter of Ilham Tohti; Enver Can, founding president of the Ilham Tohti Initiative; Rushan Abbas, executive director of Campaign for Uyghurs; Dr. Teng Biao, Chinese human rights lawyer and activist; Wuer Kaixi, general secretary of the Taiwan Parliamentary Human Rights Commission; Marie Holzman, member of ITI and president of Solidarité Chine; Prof. Vanessa Frangville, Université Libre Brussels; project Sinopsis; Dr. Ondrej Klimes, Czech Academy of Sciences; Susanne Kohler and Gerhard Keller, board members of Wahrheitskämpfer e.V.; and Sheng Xue, editor-in-chief of “China Spring Magazine.
The letter also emphasizes the broader context of Uyghur human rights abuses in China, pointing to the ongoing repression of Uyghur cultural and religious life and the imprisonment of numerous other Uyghur scholars including Rahile Dawut and Dr. Gulshan Abbas. It draws parallels to the struggles of Hong Kong activists such as Jimmy Lai and Joshua Wong, emphasizing the systemic nature of China’s authoritarian policies.
The appeal argues that awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Ilham Tohti would serve as a beacon of hope for victims of oppression in China and strengthen the global commitment to human rights, multiculturalism, and peaceful dialogue. The world, the signatories assert, needs a democratic China, and recognizing Ilham Tohti’s contributions could inspire positive change in China.
Enver Can, a veteran Uyghur diaspora activist who initiated the appeal, referencing his letter to other European leaders last week, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, says:
“The Czech Republic is a cradle of democracy and freedom in Central Europe. The ‘Prague Spring Movement’ of Alexander Dubček in 1968 was historically an exemplary resistance against the dominion of the former USSR. During the ‘Glasnost’ process of the late 1980s, the ‘Charter 77’ Human Rights Movement of former Czechoslovakia, under the leadership of Václav Havel, played an important role in the collapse of the Eastern Bloc or the ‘Warsaw Pact.’ Equally important: Prof. Ilham Tohti is a laureate of the Václav Havel Human Rights Award. Thus, I hope President Petr Pavel of the Czech Republic could be very instrumental in promoting Ilham Tohti’s nomination for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize in international fora.“
The Czech Republic is one of the pioneer countries in recognizing the Uyghur genocide and the unjust imprisonment of Ilham Tohti. In June 2021, the Czech Senate unanimously passed a resolution condemning the mistreatment of Uyghurs as both genocide and a crime against humanity. As Can noted, Ilham Tohti was laureated with the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize, named after the former late president of the Czech Republic.
Last October, a panel discussion on the Uyghur Genocide, Ilham Tohti, and Gulshan Abbas was organized as part of the Forum2000 events in the Czech Republic, where freedom, democracy, and human rights issues were discussed.
In October 2023, a ‘testimony’ meeting on ‘forced labor and assimilation in the Uyghur region’ was held in the Senate of the Czech Republic, jointly organized by the Ilham Tohti Initiative, the World Uyghur Congress, and the Campaign for Uyghurs. The testimony was hosted with joint participation from Senators Pavel Fischer and Jiří Oberfalzer.
On 15 January 2024, to mark the 10th anniversary of the unjust imprisonment of Uyghur academic Ilham Tohti, a panel discussion titled ‘Freedom for Ilham Tohti’ was hosted by the Václav Havel Library with the participation of prominent politicians and academics. The panel also included ambassadors from the United States, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, and South Korea.