Nurungul Tohti | |
---|---|
Born | 1980 (age 43–44) |
Nationality | Chinese |
Occupation | Activist |
Nurungul Tohti (born 1980) is a Uyghur activist in China.[1] She is considered by TIME magazine to be part of a "rapidly growing group of activists fighting for their families and communities."[2]
Tohti comes from the Uchturpan county in Aksu.[3] She was working as a fruit seller in Dalian.[4] When her son was kidnapped in 2009, she rescued him on her own by "confronting the abductors herself."[1] After she recovered her son, she went to officials in the local government to ask for help in prosecuting her son's kidnappers.[4] She was denied redress and appealed to authorities.[3] She appealed to the United Nations, and was arrested on June 4, 2012, and held for eight months.[1]
As an activist who is working for justice in her son's case, she has been jailed three times.[5] Tohti believes that as a minority in China, she is being discriminated against and has appealed her case to Beijing in June 2015.[4]