Today marks the tenth year of detention for Uyghur human rights activist Ilham Tohti. Tohti remains in detention simply for advocating for the rights of Uyghurs and other minority groups in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). His life sentence demonstrates the PRC’s efforts to silence those brave enough to speak out against the government’s discriminatory practices and other human rights abuses, which include genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
We once again condemn the PRC’s ongoing atrocities in Xinjiang, and we call on the PRC to respect the human dignity of members of ethnic and religious minority groups and to immediately and unconditionally release Tohti and all those arbitrarily detained in Xinjiang and throughout all of China.
