《纽约时报》 2014年01月17日
一位以批评维族在中国所受歧视而知名的维族经济学者，遭到了警方拘留，他妻子说。维族是一个以穆斯林为主的民族。
伊力哈木・土赫提(Ilham Tohti)是中央民族大学教授，本周三下午，有30到40名警察搜查了他在北京的公寓，伊力哈木也遭到拘留，他的妻子古再丽努尔在电话采访中说。
伊力哈木的母亲则在失踪了几个小时之后，于周三晚十点半左右被送回公寓，古再丽努尔说。
古再丽努尔说，周三傍晚她下班回家，发现丈夫和婆婆都不在，而警察正在搜查他们的家。警察拿走了几台电脑，一些闪存驱动器、书籍、论文、甚至学生的作业，她说。他们的两个儿子，年龄分别为4岁和7岁，被迫坐在一张沙发上，在6个小时的搜索过程中，当他们试图站起来时，警察就会把他们按下去，她说。
“我问警察：‘你还是人吗？’”古再丽努尔说。
在过去几年里，愿意公开谈论共产党在新疆执政的不足之处的知识分子极少，而44岁的伊力哈木就是其中之一。新疆是中国西北的一片广袤区域，是维族人家园。伊力哈木说，维族人从新疆经济的强劲增长中获益极少，这助长了他们的怨恨情绪。
在分布着大量少数民族人口的地区，比如新疆和西藏，中国当局无法容忍异议，经常指责活动分子们促进了分裂运动。然而伊力哈木说过，他希望中国执行其对新疆的官方政策，新疆名义上是一个自治区。
伊力哈木之前曾遭到过软禁，但最近几个月来，中国官员对他和家人施加的压力越来越大。去年11月，他说安全部门人员逼停他的车，并威胁要杀害他的妻儿。
“多年以来，警察一直在对我进行监视、软禁和跟踪，但我从未见过公安人员做出这种举动，”伊力哈木在冲突之后说。“威胁儿童不是人干的事。”
那起事件发生数日之前，一名维族男子及其母亲和妻子开车冲过天安门附近的一条人行道，撞倒了一些行人，然后车辆起火燃烧。车上的三个人和两名路人丧生，40人受伤。一名安全官员后来说，这是一起和恐怖组织有关的袭击事件。
伊力哈木曾表示，他担心这起事件会被用来对维族人施压。安全部门人员的威胁之一，就是警告他不要跟外国记者交谈，但他说，自己不会被吓倒。
“我认为，新疆安全部门想对付他已经有一段时间了，”人权观察(Human Rights Watch)在香港的高级研究员林伟(Nicholas Bequelin)说。“他住在北京，以及他的教授身份，多多少少对他有些保护，但最近几个月这些保护消失了，因为最高层的意思变得更加清楚。同时他也明确表示了不会让步。”
路透社报道，外交部发言人洪磊在周四的例行新闻发布会上表示，“伊力哈木涉嫌违法。公安机关依法对他进行了拘留。现在相关部门将依法处理此事。”
伊力哈木创立的网站Uighubiz.net率先发布了他遭到拘留的消息。该网站密切关注新疆发展，自从几年前在中国遭到屏蔽后，就托管到了海外。本周三，该网站登出伊力哈木被拘留的消息后就无法访问，不过缓存的内容仍然可以查看。
他的母亲周三在儿子公寓附近散步时，有两个来自新疆的人跟她搭话，并带她去新疆在京的办事处吃饭，而且不让她离开，直到晚上十点以后，古再丽努尔说。古再丽努尔怀疑他们是政府工作人员，目的是在警察搜查的过程中，把伊力哈木患有心脏病的母亲带离公寓。
在2010年接受《纽约时报》采访时，伊力哈木曾表示，他母亲担心他开展的活动会让他跟政府起冲突，“她说，如果知道我会变成这样，就永远都不会让我去上学。”
Mia Li对本文有调查贡献。
翻译：土土
翻译：土土
SINOSPHERE
Outspoken Uighur Scholar Detained in Beijing
By THE NEW YORK TIMES January 17, 2014
A prominent Uighur economist known for his criticism of the discrimination the predominantly Muslim ethnic group faces in China has been detained by the police, his wife said.
Ilham Tohti, a professor at Minzu University of China, was taken into custody when 30 to 40 police officers raided Mr. Tohti’s Beijing apartment on Wednesday afternoon, his wife, Guzaili Nu’er, said in a telephone interview.
Mr. Tohti’s mother, who went missing for several hours, was returned to the family apartment around 10:30 p.m. Wednesday, Ms. Nu’er said.
Ms. Nu’er said she returned home from work early Wednesday evening to find her husband and mother-in-law gone and police officers scouring their home. The officers removed several computers, flash drives, books, papers and even students’ assignments, she said. The couple’s two sons, ages 4 and 7, were forced to sit on a couch, and officers pushed them down when they tried to stand up during the six-hour search, she said.
“I asked the police, ‘Aren’t you humans?’” Ms. Nu’er said.
Over the past several years, Mr. Tohti, 44, has been one of a very few intellectuals willing to speak publicly about shortcomings in the Communist Party’s governance of the Uighur homeland of Xinjiang, a vast region in northwest China. He says Uighurs have enjoyed little of the fruits of Xinjiang’s strong economic growth, which fuels resentment.
The Chinese authorities are intolerant of dissent in regions with large minority populations like Xinjiang and Tibet, and activists are often accused of promoting separatist movements. Mr. Tohti has said, however, that he wants China to enforce its stated policies toward Xinjiang, which is nominally an autonomous region.
Mr. Tohti has been placed under house arrest before, but in recent months officials have placed increasing pressure on him and his family. In November, he said security agentsrammed his car and threatened to kill his wife and children.
“I’ve been monitored, kept under house arrest and followed by the police for many years, but I’ve never seen public security agents behave this way,” he said after that altercation. “To threaten children just isn’t human.”
That incident came days after an incident in which a Uighur man, his wife and his mother drove down a sidewalk near Tiananmen Square, hitting several pedestrians before their vehicle erupted in flames. The three people in the car and two bystanders were killed and 40 other people were injured. A security official later called it an attack linked to a terrorist organization.
Mr. Tohti said he feared the incident would be used to increase pressure on Uighurs. The security agents’ threats included a warning not to speak with foreign journalists, though the scholar said he refused to be cowed.
“I think the Xinjiang security apparatus has been trying to get at him for some time,” said Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong Kong-based senior researcher for Human Rights Watch. “He was somewhat protected by his status as a professor and living in Beijing and so on, but that evaporated in recent months as the line coming from the top became clearer. And he has very clearly refused to back down.”
A Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, said at a regular news briefing on Thursday, “Ilham is suspected of breaking the law,” Reuters reported. “The public security organs have detained him in accordance with the law. The relevant departments will now deal with him in accordance with the law.”
Word of Mr. Tohti’s detention first appeared on a website he founded, Uighubiz.net, that closely monitors developments in Xinjiang. The website, which has been hosted overseas since it was blocked in China several years ago, went down on Wednesday after the notice of Mr. Tohti’s detention was published, although cached versions can still be viewed.
Ms. Tohti’s mother was walking near her son’s apartment on Wednesday when she was approached by two people from Xinjiang who took her to dinner at the region’s representative office in Beijing and would not let her leave until after 10 p.m., Ms. Nu’er said. Ms. Nu’er suspects they were government employees assigned to keep Mr. Tohti’s mother, who suffers from a heart ailment, out of the apartment during the police search.
In a 2010 interview with The New York Times, Mr. Tohti said his mother worried about his work leading him into conflict with the government. “She said she would have never allowed me to go to school if she knew I would turn out like this,” he said.
Mia Li contributed research.
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