Jewher Ilham: Fears for her Uighur family in China
The Interview
BBC
4.3 • 537 Ratings
🗓️ 10 March 2021
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A combination of personal testimony, leaked documents and satellite imagery points to a systematic policy of repression of the Muslim Uighur population of Xinjiang province in China. Jewher Ilham, a young Uighur woman, currently living in America, tells Stephen Sackur about her campaign to save her father who has been imprisoned for the past 7 years. The fate of the Uighurs has become a geopolitical issue - but is anything going to change?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Saka. My guest today had her life turned |
| 0:06.9 | upside down when she was 18 years old. Back in 2013, Juhar Elham was on her way to the United States |
| 0:15.1 | with her father, Ilham Totti, a Uyghur academic and social activist, when he was arrested at the airport. |
| 0:23.6 | He insisted that his daughter board the plane without him. She did. Eight years on, she's never |
| 0:30.0 | been back to China and has no idea where her father is. Indeed, whether he is still alive. In 2014, |
| 0:40.2 | he was imprisoned for life for encouraging Uyghur separatism, and in recent years nothing has been heard from him. Juhar Ilham completed a degree |
| 0:47.6 | in Indiana in the American Midwest and is now using her voice to campaign for Uyghur human rights. |
| 0:54.7 | There is much greater awareness of the Chinese government's systemic repression of the Muslim |
| 1:00.1 | Uyghur population of Xinjiang province than there was at the time of her father's trial and |
| 1:05.7 | imprisonment. |
| 1:06.5 | But are expressions of concern in Western capitals making any meaningful difference to the Uyghurs of Xinjiang? |
| 1:15.3 | Well, Juhar Ilham joins me now from the United States. |
| 1:19.5 | Welcome to Hard Talk. |
| 1:21.3 | Thank you very much for having me, Mr. Sucker. |
| 1:23.4 | I want to begin by taking you back eight years. It was eight years ago that you and your father went to Beijing Airport, preparing to fly to the United States. Your dad was detained by the authorities. He could not fly. You had to fly on your own, and you have not seen your father since. So can I begin by asking you, |
| 1:46.5 | what do you know of your father's situation today? The last time I saw my father was eight years ago |
| 1:53.3 | and the last time I heard his voice was seven years ago. After we were separated at the airport, my father was arrested for a few days |
| 2:05.2 | and he was allowed to return home and he started his house arrest time for 11 months. Then he was |
| 2:12.2 | officially arrested again and then he was put under a charge for a life sentence. Since then, I haven't heard a word from him. |
| 2:22.7 | I do not know what is his current health condition if he still held in the same prison as he was first |
| 2:32.6 | announced. And nobody has seen him since 2017. We do not know if he's |
| 2:39.8 | alive. You don't know if he's alive. So there's been no contact whatsoever for what four years, |
... |
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