EU leaders must use China summit to secure release of Uyghur activists, rights groups urge

EU president Ursula von der Leyen and European Council chief Charles Michel are set to travel to Beijing for crucial talks this week. Beijing has warned them to keep the summit ‘constructive’

The daughter of a respected and outspoken Uyghur economist who has been in prison for almost a decade on charges relating to "separatism" has called on EU leaders to press for his release during an upcoming summit with China.

Ilham Tohti was arrested in January 2014 following a raid on his home and sentenced to life in prison following a two-day trial.

Next month, Ilham will complete 10 years in prison – where exactly his family does not know, according to his daughter Jewher Ilham.

"My father Ilham Tohti was banned from leaving the country and sentenced to life after Xi Jinping came to power in China," Ms Ilham said on Monday at a joint press conference with Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

"As of today, I do not know where my father is or even if he is alive," Ms Ilham said.

The rights groups are calling on the EU’s leaders to take a firm stance on the Xi administration's human rights record, and to press for the release of Uyghur rights defenders during the EU-China talks that begin on Thursday.

File: University professor, blogger, and member of the Muslim Uighur minority, Ilham Tohti pauses before a classroom lecture in Beijing on 12 June 2010 (AFP/Getty Images)

EU president Ursula von der Leyen and European Council chief Charles Michel will travel to Beijing this week for the highly anticipated summit with Mr Xi aimed at mending frayed bilateral ties.

Ms Ilham said when her father was awarded the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought award, she was assured that the EU stood with the economist and other innocent Uyghurs and rights defenders.

"I'd only believe this statement if the EU takes truly meaningful actions and holds the Chinese government accountable for the human rights abuses they have committed," she said.

Beijing has been accused of committing crimes against humanity against the Uyghurs and other ethnic minority groups over the past decade through widespread abuses that include mass incarceration, forced labour, torture and sexual assault.

The UN says China has detained more than 1 million minority Muslims, mostly ethnic Uyghurs, since a dramatic escalation of counter-terrorism policies in the spring of 2017. China initially denied the existence of any Uyghur detention centres before defending them as “re-education centres”.

Various researchers and international bodies, including a people’s tribunal in London, have accused Beijing of using the centres to enact a form of “cultural genocide” against the minority group.

The Xi administration has routinely denied allegations of Uyghur persecution, calling it "the lie of the century".

Hundreds gather outside the Chinese Consulate to protest Chinese President Xi Jinping (AP)

Ms Ilham said she expected the EU leaders to address "corporate complicity" in Uyghur forced labour, with "enough evidence" suggesting that the Xi administration was imposing forced labour on ethnic minorities.

“EU leaders should realise that the Chinese government’s deepening repressive rule will have serious implications for EU-China relations,” said Philippe Dam, the EU director at Human Rights Watch.

“Von der Leyen and Michel should address China’s rights violations head on and make clear to president Xi Jinping that there can be no business as usual if pervasive repression continues across the country.”

The European authorities were also urged to call for the release of unjustly imprisoned EU citizen and Hong Kong bookseller Gui Minhai, lawyer Yu Wensheng and his wife, Xu Yan, among many others. Uyghur scholar Rahile Dawut was sentenced to a life in prison in September on charges of "endangering state security".

Human Rights Watch issued an open letter to the European leaders in which it said human rights dialogue with China had become "meaningless because of the Chinese authorities’ unwillingness to genuinely engage on human rights issues".

Instead, the group suggested, the EU should expand targeted sanctions against officials responsible for "grave violations" in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong.

At least 280 activists have been arrested in Hong Kong following the implementation of Beijing’s draconian national security law, drafted and then retrospectively applied to crack down on the city’s 2019 pro-democracy protest movement.

Agnes Callamard, the secretary-general at Amnesty International, said clear answers were needed on how China was implementing UN regulations concerning the treatment of its Uyghur community.

“We need to draw a clear line on extraterritorial repression by China, that has got to stop,” she said.

Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi on Monday said Beijing hopes to boost relations with the EU and both sides should view bilateral relations from a strategic perspective.

"China and the EU have not completely the same point of view on international and regional issues, and only by adhering to communication and coordination can we play a constructive role in maintaining world peace and stability and addressing global challenges," Mr Wang said.