Uighur economist feared detained in Beijing

Jul 9, 2009, 3:52 GMT

   Beijing - A prominent economist from China's Uighur minority is feared to have been detained after he was accused of spreading online information that encouraged recent ethnic-related rioting in the far western region of Xinjiang, reports said Thursday.

   Ilham Tohti, an economist at the Central Nationalities University in Beijing, told US-based Radio Free Asia Tuesday that police had summoned him for questioning.

   'Police have been watching my home for two days now,' the broadcaster quoted Tohti as telling its Uighur-language service in a brief telephone interview.

   'They are calling me now, and I have to go,' he said. 'I may be out of touch for some time.'

   Radio Free Asia said it had been unable to contact Tohti since the interview.

   Tohti, 39, had published a blog on the overseas-based website www.uighurbiz.net, known as Uighur Online, which was blocked in China Thursday.

   In his last blog entry on Tuesday, Tohti responded to accusations by Nur Bekri, the chairman of the Xinjiang regional government, that Uighur Online had encouraged unrest.

   China's ruling Communist Party has also accused Rebiya Kadeer, the exiled leader of the World Uighur Congress, of organizing unrest that has led this week to the death of more than 150 people in the regional capital, Urumqi.

   'As the editor of Uighur Online, I want only to tell Nur Bekri, 'You are right, everything you say is right, because you will decide everything',' Tohti wrote.

   'Going to court to resolve disputes is the fairest course of action in a lawful society,' he said.

   'I have my own group of lawyers,' he said. 'When my trial comes up, don't appoint a lawyer for me.'

   In his interview with Radio Free Asia, Tohti said he was 'not involved in anything' linked to the rioting in Urumqi, but he was 'not safe.'

   He had 'gathered information on the clashes but wouldn't release it because the timing was too sensitive,' the broadcaster said.

   The Chinese government is appealing for calm and ethnic unity in Xinjiang after deploying thousands of extra police and troops amid reports of smaller protests Wednesday and reprisals against Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim group that accuses Beijing of discrimination, by groups of Han Chinese.

   Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said the apparent detention of Tohti showed that the police crackdown is 'not limited to Xinjiang.'

   'The authorities have arrested an independent writer who was just posting reports on his blog,' the group said.

   'We think his arrest is a direct result of the role he played in informing the Uighur community in China and abroad,' it said.

   'We call for his release, which could help to stop the violence,' it said.

   The World Uighur Congress has claimed that up to 800 people have died in the rioting, many of them Uighurs shot or beaten by Chinese police.