Daughter of 'jailed' Muslim Uighur scholar appeals for global support

The daughter of a prominent Muslim Uighur academic jailed for life in China has appealed for support from scholars worldwide demanding information about her fate.

The human rights group Dui Hua said last month that China had sentenced Rahile Dawut to life behind bars for "endangering state security," although the government has remained silent about the case.

A leading scholar who had written extensively on Uighur folklore, Dawut is one of more than a million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in China's northwestern Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.

Her daughter, Akeda Pulati — who now lives in the United States — said she hoped her mother's fellow academics in universities across the world could help her to learn her mother whereabout.

"I hope they don't stay silent," she said.

"I want the world and humanitarian organisations to never forget about the Uighur people, they are still suffering," she said in a phone interview.

Pulati she had heard nothing from her mother since December 2017, just before her alleged detention — only confirmed four years later by Radio Free Asia.

Asked about her case last month, China's foreign ministry said it had no information to offer.

Pulati said she was still in contact with family in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region — who say that her mother is alive, but she can not ask them for further details.

"I need to make sure they are safe, I don't want to bring any trouble to them," she said.

Pulati voiced anger and frustration at the lack of information from the authorities, as well as the reported sentence.

"This will be unimaginable, unbearable pain for the rest of my life, if my mom has to spend her life in prison."

The silence from authorities deepened her fears, she said.

"I assume it's really bad because if she's doing okay, why can't I talk to her?"

'Preserving culture'

In many ways, Dawut was a model Chinese citizen: an internationally renowned scholar and reportedly a Communist Party member, she blazed a trail for women in her field.

"She showed me how much a woman can achieve," Pulati said.

"All she was doing was just studying the culture and preserving the culture," she said.

Rights groups and the United States say the policies against the Uighurs constitute "genocide".

China denies any wrongdoing in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and has blasted accusations of genocide as the "lie of the century".

The United Nations has insisted it is still pushing for accountability for abuses in China's Xinjiang region, after rights groups slammed its "woefully inadequate" response to the crisis.