Tohti had in recent months sharpened his critique of problems in China's far west region of Xinjiang. "Professor Ilham Tohti is a Uighur intellectual who devoted himself to friendship between ethnic groups and eradicating conflicts between them. He should not be taken as a criminal," said the letter, which demanded information about his case and was posted online Monday.
The letter said the Web site that Tohti founded, Uighurbiz.cn, a Chinese-language Web site that became a lively forum about Uighur life and views, was an important site for dialogue between Han Chinese and Uighurs. The letter was signed by Chinese authors, including Wang Lixiong, a Chinese democracy activist, and posted on the international version of the blogging Web portal Bullog, at bullogger.com.
"The signing is continuing and it is gathering more signatures," said Woeser, a Beijing-based Tibetan writer and blogger who signed the letter.
It urged the Chinese government to reflect on whether its own mistakes caused the unrest in Xinjiang and the anti-government riots last year in Lhasa and other Tibetan communities.
Xinjiang Governor Nur Bekri in a televised speech on July 6 accused Tohti's Web site and another popular one of helping “to orchestrate the incitement and spread propaganda,” a day after Sunday's peaceful protest by Uighurs dissolved into a riot.
Tohti, 39, disappeared from his Beijing home last week, but called a friend just after midnight on Wednesday to say he would be detained. A spokesman for the Beijing Public Security Bureau said he did not have any information on the case.
