Book Review: “We Uyghurs Have No Say” — When Truth Telling Becomes Subversive

March 12, 2022

What do the words of an imprisoned Uyghur dissident tell us about the desperate plight of China’s ethnic minorities today?

We Uyghurs Have No Say: An Imprisoned Writer Speaks by Ilham Tohti. Translated by Yaxue Cao, Cindy Carter, and Matthew Robertson. Verso Books, 192 pages, $24.95.

An ethnically Uyghur economist, writer, and public intellectual, Ilham Tohti co-founded Uyghur Online, a website designed to promote understanding between Uyghurs and Han Chinese. It is now blocked inside China. Tohti has been imprisoned since 2014; he was accused of the crime of advocating for “separatism” and espousing the violent overthrow of the Chinese government. Tohti was subjected to a two-day trial and was sentenced to life. Since 2017 he has been held incommunicado, with no access to his family or his lawyers. He won the 2014 PEN/Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

Read the full article: https://artsfuse.org/251229/book-review-we-uyghurs-have-no-say-when-truth-telling-becomes-subversive/