Chinese Historian’s Continued Imprisonment for Publication

The Network of Concerned Historians and the International PEN’s Writers in Prison Committee invite our members to send letters in support of the historian Tohti Tunyaz, sentenced to eleven years' imprisonment in China. BACKGROUND INFORMATION: In February or April 1998, Tohti Tunyaz, an Uighur historian and writer, born in Kashgar and graduated from the Central Institute of Nationalities history department, Beijing (1984), later assigned to work for the China National Standing Committee, and studying for a Ph.

D. in Uighur history and ethnic relations in nineteenth- and twentieth-history China at Tokyo University School of Humanities, Japan (1995-), was arrested in Urumqi, Xinjiang, when returning to China to visit his relatives and do research. His works on Uighur history included one book published in China and several papers published in Japan.

In November 1998, he was charged with "illegally acquiring state secrets for foreign persons" because he had copied part of a 50-year-old document provided by an official librarian, and with "inciting separatism" (or "inciting national disunity") because he had allegedly published a book in Japan in 1998, entitled The Inside Story of the Silk Road, advocating "ethnic separatism"--although his Japanese supervisor Sato Tsugitaka insisted that no such book exists. In March 1999 Tohti was tried and, following an appeal, sentenced by the Supreme Court in February 2000 to eleven years' imprisonment and two years' deprivation of political rights. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has declared that Tohti was "arbitrarily detained."

PLEASE WRITE APPEALING POLITELY FOR TOHTI TUNYAZ'S RELEASE TO:

His Excellency Zhang Fusen
**Minister of Justice
**Sifabu Xiaguangli
**Beijing 100016
**People's Republic of China
**Fax: +011 86 10 6839 3014 or 6529 2345
**E-mail:

Please send copies to:

President of the People's Republic of China
**Hu Jintao
**The State Council General Office
**Yongneixijie
**Beijing 100701
**People's Republic of China

Natalie Nicora, NEAR: natalie.nicora@nearinternational.org
Sara Whyatt – Writers in Prison: swhaytt@wipcpen.org

Alert - China

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