Indiana Public Media, 30 September 2014

China sentenced Ilham Tohti, an advocate for the mostly Muslim minority Uighers, to life in prison after a closed-door trial. The daughter of the Chinese scholar who was sentenced to life in prison last week says she does not think she’ll be able to return to China anytime soon.

Last year, Jewher Ilham was accompanying her father Ilham Tohti to Bloomington where he planned to become a visiting scholar at Indiana University. But Ilham Tohti was detained at the airport in China before they could make the trip.

It was then that he told his daughter to go to the U.S. without him.

Jewher enrolled at IU, and she consistently defends her father who has been convicted and given a life sentence for advocating for the separatism of the Uyghur people—a Chinese minority.

In an interview with NPR’s Steve Inskeep, Jewher said the allegations are not true.

“He was basically just trying to advocate for Uygher human rights,” she said.

Now, Jewher says she does not think she will be able to return to her home country.

“I am sure since I’ve done all the things for my father, since I’ve spread all the news for him, I am also on the blacklist I think,” she told NPR.

Ilham Tohti is appealing his case, but human rights advocates say they are skeptical the ruling will be overturned.

http://indianapublicmedia.org/news/daughter-chinese-scholar-iu-ties-speaks-72560/