Once Beijing's Darling, Uyghur Scholars Imprisoned For Life

Uyghur folklorist Rahile Dawut, whose disappearance nearly six years ago was one of the initial signs of China's attempt to suppress the Uyghur intelligentsia, has been sentenced to life imprisonment for "endangering national security," according to documents obtained by the Dui Hua Foundation, as reported by James Palmer for Foreign Policy.

The news of her life sentence has triggered outrage, with calls for universities that collaborated with her to reconsider their relationships with Chinese institutions. I Photo: Lisa Ross / Free Rahile Dawut Facebook

At the time of her disappearance, Dawut, now 57, was an internationally renowned scholar.

The news of her life sentence has triggered outrage, with calls for universities that collaborated with her to reconsider their relationships with Chinese institutions.

Similar to many Uyghur academics, professionals, and businesspeople who have vanished, Dawut was once embraced by the Chinese Communist Party establishment, even appearing in photo-ops with top party leaders.

As a senior professor, she led an institute dedicated to studying Uyghur culture, a subject that was once somewhat shielded by China's minority policy.

Until the early 2000s, this policy sought to preserve local languages and traditions, albeit within a Marxist-nationalist framework.

However, China has since shifted to an assimilationist policy in which research on traditions not associated with the Han ethnic majority is viewed as perilous, especially in regions where China's historical claims are tenuous, such as Xinjiang and Tibet.

Uyghur-language materials created by state-authorized scholars in the early 2000s are now being used as grounds for imprisoning their authors on charges of separatism and terrorism.

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