DHARAMSHALA, JULY 8: China has denied entry to an American professor who teaches Tibetan History at the Indiana University for his support for a jailed Uighur Professor Ilham Toti despite having a valid Chinese Visa.
As soon as Eliot Harris Sperling landed in Beijing, Chinese immigration officers took him to a back room in the airport for questioning. Sperling told the New York Times that his support for Tohti might be the reason for his being denied entry into China and cancellation of his Chinese Visa expiring in June next year.
“There was obviously an order about me entered into the database,” the New York Times quoted him as saying. “I saw no point in arguing. I mean, I had a pretty clear notion about why I was being denied entry. For me, it was clearly about Ilham.”
China increasingly punishes scholars, journalists and others who write or speak against the Chinese government by either denying them Visa or extraditing them from the airport.
“The issue for me is not my being denied entry — I can certainly continue my research and academic work without going to China — but the attempt to pressure those who speak in support of Ilham to retreat into silence, or at least to isolate them,” Mr. Sperling said.
A picture of Sperling’s passport shows his Chinese Visa with the word ‘cancelled’ stamped on it and crossed by a black X. “I call it my Chinese Communist Party Human Rights Award,” Mr. Sperling said.
Sperling, 63, had helped Tohti acquire a teaching positon at Indiana University as a visiting scholar for a year. However, Tohti was detained by police officers in February 2013 when he arrived at Beijing Capital International Airport to board his flight to the United States. His daughter, Jewher Ilham, who was accompanying him, did board the flight and is now studying at Indiana University.
Tohti was jailed shortly after the July 2009 Ürümqi riots by the authorities because of his criticism of the Chinese government’s policies toward Uyghurs in Xinjiang. He was later released and then jailed again in January 2014. For his work in the face of adversity he was awarded the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award. His daughter received the award on his behalf.
