 Before introducing tonight's event, I'd like to read a brief statement that the university has prepared to acknowledge the land on which Roger Williams University resides. We recognize the unique and enduring relationship that exists between indigenous people and their traditional territories. We acknowledge that Roger Williams University's Bristol and Providence campuses are located within the homelands of both the Poconocha and Narragansett nations. Let this acknowledgement serve as a reminder of our ongoing efforts to reconcile and partner with the Narragansett and Poconocha and all indigenous peoples whose lands and waters we benefit from today. Thank you. I'd also like to acknowledge the benefactor of our Talking in the Library series. The events are generously supported by an endowment to the university library by an alumna of the university, Mary Teft-White, whose donation also made possible the program space in the library known as the Mary Teft-White Cultural Center. And that's the area that we would normally be meeting in instead of Zoom. This evening, our library program director, Professor Adam Braver, has put together an exciting and timely program entitled Daughters of Dissidence, the Humanitarian Effects of the Uyghur Crisis. Many thanks to Adam for all his work on this. We are happy to feature two speakers, Johar Ilham, whom we've been fortunate to host here at Roger Williams in the past. And for the first time, we'd like to welcome Akita Pulati. We are pleased to partner in presenting this program with the Scholars at Risk Network. In a moment, I will turn this over to their director of advocacy, Claire Robinson. But first, I'd just like to mention a few of the upcoming programs we are hosting this semester. As part of our Burst Memorial program, which annually celebrates the anniversary of a great work of literature, we have selected Ernest Gaines' novel, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, for which we have prepared a virtual exhibit with facsimile materials from the Gaines archive at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette. On March 15th, we will host a panel of scholars to discuss this book. And on March 22nd, we will feature American novelist Adam Hazlett as part of the University Library's Vermont Fellowship for Fiction and Creative Nonfiction. We'll be sending out information about these programs soon, and they will be posted also on the library website. So I do hope you'll be able to join us. And now may I introduce Claire Robinson. Thank you, Betsy. I'm delighted to be here on behalf of Scholars at Risk. As many of you know, Scholars at Risk is an international network of over 500 higher education institutions in 39 countries committed to protecting the human rights of scholars and promoting academic freedom. We do this in part through creating temporary positions of academic refuge for threatened scholars, and in part through raising awareness and conducting advocacy in support of academic freedom and the increased protections for scholars. As Betsy noted, I direct Scholars at Risk's advocacy work. And in my role, I have the honor of partnering with Roger Williams University Professor Adam Braver and his students in coordinating and leading Scholars at Risk's Student Advocacy Seminar Program. Through this program, faculty-led teams of students conduct research and advocacy in support of imprisoned scholars. Over the years, two of the eminent academics these students have advocated for are economist Ilham Toti and ethnographer Raheela Dawout. The students have produced research briefs, met with government officials, written op-eds, raised awareness on campus, and more. But in my opinion, the most important thing that they have done and that they continue to do is remind the scholars themselves and their families and colleagues that these scholars are not forgotten, that advocacy continues, that work is happening, and that there is hope. And that is part of what we are all doing here today in bearing witness and learning from Jahar and Akita and each other. So thank you for being here. Thank you for spending your time with us. And thank you, Roger Williams, for hosting this. Thank you, Claire. I'm Adam Braver, and I'm gonna get us going. I wanna just start by saying that Jahar Ilham first visited our campus in 2015 following a connection forged by work done through the students and the advocacy seminars on behalf of our father, as well as through the work and personal connection that she and I shared over that time. At the time, her father, Ilham Todi, had been given an unprecedented life sentence by the Chinese authorities for his peaceful work as a moderate voice trying to create dialogue between Uyghurs and Han. Jahar visited the campus again in 2019. By then, during those in between four years, so much had changed. Two years prior in 2017, the so-called reeducation camps had become a reality in the Uyghur region of China. And by then scholars and intellectuals such as Raheela Dahut, Akita's mother, were disappearing. Too soon the story ballooned from being one of selectively targeted individuals into one of an attack on an entire culture. Well over a million, all individuals. And to help us understand the experience of what it means to witness this and to advocate for change and for their parents, we welcome Jahar and Akita, daughters of Ilham Todi and Raheela Dahut. I'm gonna start off with a few questions for Jahar and Akita. And then we'll open it up for questions in the Q and A section here. So I encourage everybody to type in questions. I'm sure the conversation will be more interesting with everybody, even with just me and Jahar and Akita, or at least just me. And we'll get going. We'll try to get to as many questions as we can. So the first thing I wanna ask both of you is to just tell us about your parents a little bit. Tell us, you know, who, Jahar, who your father was, Akita, who your mother was. Help us get to know them a little bit. Akita, would you like to start first? Sure. My mother, Raheela Dahut, she was born in an intellectual family. She was a professor at Shenzhen University. In 1998, she was one of the few Uyghur women to earn PhD degrees at Beijing Normal University. She's also visiting scholars at foreign institutions, such as the Indiana University, University of Washington's University of California, Berkeley. The work she has done also received a award from China Ministry of Cultures. After I said all about her work, you might imagine my mother as a workaholic or who devoted all of her time or energy to works, but it's more than that. Like, she also, like, except for her busy schedule, like, aside from her busy work, all of the, like, all of the accomplishment she achieved in her field, she is also a very responsible mother, daughter, and wife. She, except her busy work schedule, she never forgot to make a nutritious, and a delicious breakfast for me and my father. Every time when my grandparents and her mother-in-law or father-in-law have any health issue, she would take them to the hospital and took care of them all days. All of her friends, all of her colleagues, all of her students love my mother because she has such a wonderful personality. She is open-minded, accepted any differences, accepted any, accepted any, the cultural differences, and she's so helpful whenever her students or friends needed help, she would be there for them. So that's why, after her disappearances, all of the people who knows her devastated because the world lost, not only lost of excellence, a successful scholar, but lost a wonderful person. As a daughter perspective, I grew up with my mothers, and as a daughter perspective, I got many inspirations from my mothers. I witnessed, like, I witnessed how a person with such a busy work schedule can still enjoy life. I witnessed how a person with a certain cultural background can grow up with somebody that can be open-minded and accepted any culture from any different groups. When I was a child, I decided to become someone like my mother. So her lost is such a devastating thing for me, but also inspire me, encourage me to become an activist and to speak up for her. I would love to, right now I just wanted to tell you whom my mother is, and the later on in my life, whom my mother is, and the later on, I can talk more about my mother's disappearances and why she was detained by the Chinese government, but I would love to give this opportunity to the Jelhar to introduce her father. Thank you, Akheda. Hello, everyone. My name is Jelhar Alham. I am the daughter of a jailed scholar, Ifham Toghdi. Some of you may be familiar with this name. Some of you might not know. My father was a well-known economist in China. He was a professor at Minzhu University in Beijing, though an economist by training, but he was best known in China as an outspoken advocate for liberal rights and also peaceful coexistence between the liberal people and the majority Han Chinese. In early, in around 2006, he, in order to, for his way of promoting inter-ethnic understanding, he also co-founded the website, www.viz.com. It was a platform that he wanted to provide for people to communicate with each other freely since social media accounts like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and searching engines like Google are all banned in China. He wanted to create a free, non-blogged platform for people to be able to communicate with each other freely. And besides creating the website, he also constantly expresses opinions and his views on his social media accounts, his social media platforms and with the journalists and he published op-eds, articles regarding on the liberal and Han Chinese issues. He also, throughout his years of studies and researches, he realized that there are lots of social economical issues in the liberal region. And he would like to, my father's a fixer when he sees a problem can't help by trying to fix it. And therefore he would reach out to a government authorities and propose solutions, ideas on how the situation can be improved, but instead of accepting or listening to a peaceful scholar's opinions, and instead they, the government had sent his my father to life and also committed him on the dubious charge of separatism. The last time I saw my father was 2013, February 2nd. And that was the time when he was invited by Indiana University as a visiting scholar. And I was planning to come with my father to the US just for a month to help him settle down. But we were separated at the airport and that was the last time I saw him. 11 months after that separation at the airport, he was officially arrested. And since 2017, and also as Adam said, the start of all those camps, so-called eradication camps, concentration camps, labor camps, whatever you call it, since 2017, when mass number of camp started to appear, I have lost contact, any information of my father. Family visits is no longer allowed. We don't know what is my father's current condition. And we don't know if he's still being held in the same prison. We don't know if he's even alive. Thanks, Johar. Just briefly, and Johar, you touched on it already, but Akita, what brought you to the United States? So how have you ended up in the United States? And well, let's start there and what's your situation in the United States too? Thank you so much for asking. So I came to the United States with FMN visa after I finished my university undergraduate degrees in Beijing, China. When I was studying on my undergraduate degrees, my mother always encouraged me to pursue advanced degree. I asked her, like, what should I do after the graduations? Instead of saying that you should get a job or you should get married, she said, you are young, you should pursue, like, you are young, you have many potentials. You need to see the world, you need to pursue advanced degree, you need to read more books and gain more knowledge when you are young. Because once you get older, there might be a fewer chance. So I will support you, I will unconditionally support you. So that encouraged me to prepare for the GMAT examination, Tulfo examination when I was studying in Beijing. After I finished my undergraduate degree, I came to the United States to pursue my master's degrees. And so my life in the United States just started since 2015 June. And your mother was here, wasn't she for a while in the United States? Yes, after half years I arrived at the United States, my mother came here as a visiting scholars in the same school in the University of Washington. That six month is the last period of time I spent with my mothers. She could have transferred to a better school but she just wanted to spend more time with me and just over more support. So she applied for the University of Washington's. We spent almost six months here in the Seattle's and we went to the library together, we cook together after her work and after my study, we went for a walk together. That is the last happiest moment of my life, last happiest moment in my life. And Johar, you? As I mentioned earlier, briefly that I wasn't planning to come to the United States at all. I didn't speak English in 2013 when my father was invited as a visiting scholar. I was already a freshman student in college. My major was Arabic. And never expected that now, as you can see, I am still in America on the other side of the world from my, apart from my family. And yeah, never gone back to China once. And I have to be honest, I don't think anything positive will happen if I go back. When that was the last time I was able to see my father, when after he was arrested at the airport, he was released at home after three days and put under house arrest for almost 11 months. And during that 11 months, I used to Skype with my father every single day, not even missing a day. And I believe that that was the best thing I have ever done. I used to, my father and I, we used to Skype at least twice to three times a day just to check up on each other and see if each other are safe. And just like we would have regular father-daughter conversations and my father would ask me, what are you wearing to school? What did you learn at school? Who did you meet at school? And we try not to touch on those sad topics until a few months, a couple of months prior to his detention, my father, during one of our Skype call, he said, daddy, something might happen to daddy. And I think it would be great if he creates social media accounts and daddy have friends all over the world, all around the world. I have never met most of them, but they will help you. And you need to study hard, you need to stay strong. And at that point I didn't want to accept the fact and I still kept hope and I thought, I still believed nothing bad would happen. But January 14th, 2014, my father was taken away from our apartment in Beijing in front of my two little brothers. One of them was four years old, the other one was seven. The older one was deeply traumatized that he had had heart issues after a few months. After my, and the day before he was officially taken away from our apartment was actually my last time spoke to him, that I spoke to him because we kept communicating with each other every single day and since he was arrested I was never able to communicate with him again. I did try to send a letter to him through his lawyer when he was first arrested. And my father said, study hard and be strong. And he always, always told me to be a strong girl. And I remember the last sentence he told me when we were being separated at the airport, he said, don't cry, don't let the other things, don't let other people think we were girls are weak. And that's what something my father would typically would usually say. We're getting some questions in the Q&A. I wanna just take one more, I'll ask Akita actually, cause to follow up with what Johar was saying. And Akita, you mentioned that you would talk about why your mother was, why she was detained or why you believe she was detained. Johar obviously just explained what her father, what's your understanding of why she was detained? First off, when my mother was first detained, I kept silence for a while because I have no clues what's going on. And I was so naive at that times. And I don't know, like I don't know much about the persecutions. We as a whole nation has been going through for decades. I rarely read any political news and I stay too much away from the politics. So during that time, before my mother's detained, I already heard about some news about like the principal of the Shenzhen University was detained and this person mother was detained. I was heard several random news about those horrible things. And I was a little bit scary about this would happen to my family, but I still have like, I still like I was being too much positive. So when my mother was detained, I have no clue. I don't even know whether I should freak out or stay hopeful because I don't know what's going on. I didn't know what's going on tomorrow. Maybe my mother just show up, say hi, or maybe she disappeared forever. I have no clues. And I stay silent at the beginning, like thinking maybe after several months, maybe after Chinese governments confirm that my mother's would not cause any dangers to the Chinese, China state. They would, after they couldn't find any evidence about my mother committing any crimes, my mother's would be released. And after a long period of times, after I read all of the persecutions that the Uyghur has been going through for decades, after I witnessed the atrocity committed by the Chinese governments in recent years, I lost hope for the Chinese governments. And at that time I realized, this is not about the what Chinese governments do, the reason the Chinese government detaining my mother is not about they suspect my mother's of committing crimes or they wanted to investigate and make sure my mother's not committing crimes. It's because these Uyghurs are going through a system, like they wanted to systematically destroy Uyghur's nations. That is why they wanted to systematically detain and imprison and destroy the Uyghur intellectual scholars because they wanted to cut the roots of the Uyghur. They wanted to destroy Uyghur cultures by imprisoning and vanishing all of the Uyghur intellectuals. I love the Uyghur scholars, especially like my mother who has done so much to preserving the Uyghur cultures. I began to lose all of the hopes for the Chinese governments. And I think this is an unprecedented atrocity that Chinese government is systematically embarking on. Thank you. And that leads into some questions that are in the Q and A that are all related. And part of that has to do with what to do about that. And there are questions from particularly focused on government on the U.S. So how do we envision other states, especially the U.S., this is a question in the chat, doing to hold China accountable for the genocide, given China's economic dominance within the international system. Is it military intervention? Is it sanctions? Is it something else? Another question that kind of follows along that path just to keep it going. Does this perhaps change of administration in the U.S. going to help or how is it going to affect me? It's a better way of asking the question. So first of what can be done, do you think? What does China respond to from the U.S.? I am not a policy expert. I do have a political science degree, undergrad degree. But just based on my personal experience for the past few years with my campaigning experiences and I believe that with the current China, there is only one solution, which what people, I think it's an American saying, hit them where it hurts, if I'm saying it correctly. And which I believe for China's current China, it will be money, which is hitting, hurting them financially or economically. So as some of you may know that 84% of the global cotton production is from the Uyghur region. I mean, 84% of the cotton production of China is from the Uyghur region. And that accounts to 22% of the world cotton production. And that's just simple math. That's one out of five garment industry that is entering the U.S. or to the world is tainted with forced labor because now there are over 1 to 1.8 million Uyghurs are having gone through vocational training and sent to forced labor camps. That is why I do believe that putting sanctions on China over let's say goods that are made or produced in the Uyghur region or even outside of the Uyghur region since there is labor transferring program that is happening in China where Uyghurs all have been sent to different provinces and cities in China to work in factories for very low wages or even no payment at all under very crucial certain environments. So I do believe that sanctions would be a useful and a very efficient way to help improving the forced labor issue for the Uyghurs. And I believe one of the reasons that those forced labor camps even existed is because China would like to use it as of course free labor or almost free or cheap labor. And if international brands and corporates stop working in the Uyghur region stop sourcing from the region, stop sourcing products that are made by the Uyghurs. And if U.S. or other governments they can start putting sanctions on goods such as the recent WRO that were released by the CBP that all cuttings and tomatoes that are made in the Uyghur region are going to be bent and not allowed to be entering the U.S. And I do suggest recommend other governments can follow suit and propose similar sanctions or orders because I do think it's in a very effective way. But what matters the most is not the sanctioning it's the enforcement. Normally governments from what I've been seeing governments would make a genocide declaration or would raise conversation about this Uyghur issue but when it comes to actual enforcement they often hesitate. I do understand that because if I'm a president of a country I would care about my country's own economic growth. So I totally understand but I do suggest people should value humanitarian crisis or humanity over monetary gain. And I do believe that I'm sure countries might be afraid of retaliation from China but if one country is afraid of China might not be afraid of one country's sanction two country's sanction but if all the countries are united and working together on the specific matter it's not to boycott China and it's not to cause problems for China it's to help China to fix its own mistakes. And I do believe positive outcomes will come. Sorry I talked too much. That's fine Joar let me ask you a quick follow up that actually comes from that just came in from the chat and Keita feel free to jump in too. Is the question asked do you think it's an issue that among US politicians that some of the most vocal advocates of Uyghur human rights have also been some of the most controversial US politicians that have been people that have been considered to be very conservative very far right then and have not been necessarily politicians in the mainstream. Keita would you like to answer this question? If you don't have a switch I can't go ahead I would just want because I just talked a lot earlier so. I can follow up you can do first. I personally believe no matter who you are doesn't matter who's the president who's a politician who runs the administration it doesn't matter what opinions you hold what's more important is that Uyghurs are still suffering and the situation has not been fixed yet and doesn't matter what I think background you're from what religious background you're from doesn't matter what your identity is we all have the responsibility to speak up for each other. And even if I'm not Uyghur I think it is my duty to speak up for let's say for example what is happening in Myanmar what is happening in Yemen all these I do think we all have the responsibility to care for each other because we're all humans in the end of the day. So no I don't think it's a problem that if it's your far left or far right I do think that we all share the same responsibility which is care for each other and that would make us a good people. Well let me ask this other question and Akita we'll start with you on this one it's kind of an ancient question this is from somebody again on the Q&A who's identified as being Uyghur and says I used to have many Han Chinese friends but after 2017 I lost contact with many of them due to various reasons one main reason is that some of those Han friends have expressed that the reeducation camps are a good thing. I wonder if you have encountered similar situations again of Han friends defending that the reeducation camps and what would you say to a Han Chinese friend who thinks that that is right for the government to detain Uyghurs for who they are? Akita why don't we start with you and then Johar if you have some thoughts on it as well. Yes I would like to answer this question so from my own experiences I got several response when it comes to these issues when I talk about the reeducation camps about my mother's detain so I become an activist the first response is it's like oh reeducation camp it's not existed you are just making something up how could there is still reeducation camp in the world? This is something that is created by the Western media this is the time I talked to our friends about my mother's might ended up in the reeducation camps before my mother's news came out so this is the first response I got another response I might got from the Han Chinese friends is they might already heard about reeducation camp issues but they might answer like this is actually this is the only way that the government can maintain the stability of the Xinjiang regions or this is like by like it's like the main point they might not say directly but the main points behind their response is by sacrificing small groups of people in the reeducation camps we can maintain a happy successfully mainly like we all know this is like mainly Han Chinese happy societies if we do that base and they might like the main point is they might response in a way that is support be supportive of the Chinese government's approach but not all the Chinese are like that some of my really good Chinese friends when they heard about the news about the reeducation camp they're like I am so sorry I have no idea why our government done something like that I wish the atrocity of the I wish the suffering of Uyghurs ends soon I wish that you can see your mothers all the others Uyghurs can see their loved ones so right now so like for all the nations all the ethnic groups they have people like they have different people like people holding different opinions but our job is to tell the truth like so that's why after I became an activist I after I opened the Twitter's accounts I advocated in all of the language I can sometimes I advocated in English sometimes I advocated in Chinese it doesn't matter whether you understand or whether it's your support or whether it doesn't like it's your job to differentiate what is good or bad it's your jobs to become a human but it is my job to tell the truth and advocated about what is going on and encourage all of the people whether it's your Uyghurs whether it's your other nations whether it's your like Americans whether it's your Chinese to fight against fight against injustice justice but it's my job to advocate it and my last I already talked too much or under too fast I am a little bit excited about these issues but the last few suggestions I wanted to offer to my Chinese friends is first of all the like please don't think this as a propaganda please don't think all of the bad news about China like reeducation camp genocide of Uyghur as a propaganda created by the Western media it is the true attracity this is the true attracity true tragedy that is happening the reasons why you think that is because your governments, your state media only want you to see what they want you to see if they wanted to hide the fact hide what they are doing they will create some things like Uyghurs are living happy they might like there is no such a like concentration camp existed whether Western media are like attracting us by creating this issue it is not please do more research and that second if you decided to choose to stand on stand on justice and stand on justice and please just support your Uyghur friends by if you can maybe share the news share what's happening above on the Uyghurs on your social media if you can please just anonymously write letters to your local officials in your countries to inform them about the issues and if you are afraid of doing those steps in fearings of the retaliation from the Chinese governments you can simply just offer a hug or supportive words to your Uyghur friends and tell your Chinese friends around you what's happening on Uyghurs and maybe correct the bias that some Chinese have towards this issue I'm just adding a little more to what Akira said and so responding to the question directly that so the question was some people have expressed that re-education camp was a good thing um in my opinion we're all humans I I believe most of our roots are all genuine and good but those people who think it was a good thing the one of the possible reason could be they think it is a good thing after watching Chinese propaganda videos which portrayed as a positive solution to fix Uyghur problems and and a lot of people do believe that do believe what the Chinese government have been saying that those people who are locked up who can actually go home freely and they went in to get free education and those people going there it's just to learn how to improve their job skills and there are people actually genuinely believe that this is true I am embarrassed to say that I was one of those people when I was younger in when I was a teenager when I was still in China I believe whatever the CCTV said CCTV is the Chinese state-backed media and I believe oh since it's the official news it must be the truth but in fact that's not always a case and after coming to the US when I had access to all sorts of media it doesn't matter if it's left views or right views at least I had access to all of them but in China you only have one voice in my opinion normal society does not only have one voice because people are born to be different and we're born to have different opinions and but in China all the news day it's made to shape people to think in an exact same way so I don't I am not surprised if there are lots of Chinese inside China would think or even outside of China people who believe that those camps are are for for over people's own good and that is why I believe what we need to do is to provide with them with actual evidence and more resources more information since you'll be surprised a lot of Chinese friends I have until now they do not use any western social media or western social news they still use Baidu instead of Google even though on Baidu everything is censored a lot of things will be blocked but they still would be more comfortable with using using Baidu which I understand and that is why I encourage people to talk to them calmly instead of accusing them for thinking in certain ways and try to persuade them with actual facts and make sure to use the right sources and and and and fact check the resources too because it could eventually if you sometimes you could hurt that we could cause even more if you um just sometimes if you don't verify your source and could use against that we could be used against that we was in the end in the in the end so so I really do encourage if there are so many credible accounts of refugees stories that you can share uh and um it is quite sad and there are documentaries and I am also personally working on a documentary film where my film crew had flew to the six seven different countries including China including the and they even went into the Uyghur region to have film footages and we have done tons of interviews with camp survivors with family members off of former detainees so I really do insist on people keep trying do not lose hope do not lose hope in humanity let's be positive thank you we're getting a few questions kind of shifting a little bit i'm trying to be mindful of the time too about some advocacy some questions from people who are doing advocacy who want to help with advocacy and and support it um and um so there is you know one question um is about types of advocacy that you've seen or that you've not just seem to be successful or they even excite you that you think that this is really type of advocacy that's moving in the right direction and and a related question is that some people you know many people here are concerned that the advocacy they might do from here might bring harm to people who are in the country or the family members be it your family members in that that are still there or or family members of other Uyghur scholars in this case and so what kind of advocacy do you think is is effective and that you've seen exciting but also what are the risks that that go on particularly for family members especially in such a heavily surveilled country where we're at so this question so i'm not sure if i understand like if i understand these questions correctly or if i can make to the points but i will try to answer that so in terms of the advocates like first of all it's like let's talk about whether this advocacy would be harmful or not harmful when i first started my activism or when i first started to do something for my mothers i care at least a bit too much about whether these actions would be harmful or in the chinese government and like i should be careful about that i should be careful about this so now what i'm careful is am i doing the right thing am i am i am i doing the something that a true human a good humans will do so instead of worrying about this advocacy we'll piece chinese government off i will just think about i am whether i'm doing or good things or not so i will just speak out every truth i have i will just attend every event that people can be can be educated that i can raise more awareness on my mother issue on my bigger issues and the and so camp to the points my point right now is all of the advocacy that is uh that doesn't include any discriminations towards any ethnic groups that is telling the truth that is raising the awareness on the current issues that is the advocacy that is worth doing um i agree with that that telling the truth it's could be one of the best um campaign uh or advocacy tactics and i also believe that there is no one single best way for campaigning or for activism i personally believe that all advocacy work is the best they're all are great and you will never know in in different cases you will never know which which activity that you did for activism could could could cause a change and i in fact i think um all these activities that you do together can pile up and make a change it could happen today it could happen tomorrow it could happen in 10 years but eventually you will see the change it's just a matter of time and um what matters the most for me is the consistency um i do see people would um speak up on this issue but often after two weeks after three weeks after a year people would give up because they don't see a positive change and they get disappointed or they move on to another issue not that i think another issue is less important i personally believe that every humanitarian issue it's it's very important and it is um that i do believe that we should um as i mentioned earlier we should it's our responsibility to care for each other doesn't matter which ethnic background you are from which religious group you're from which gender group you're from so i what i suggest is consistency people they can constantly focusing on on on on the issue that you care about and constantly uh doesn't matter which which tactic which way you choose just continue and do not give up and um for uh i forgot what was the second part of the question uh it was about just the risk to people you know still in china um that's actually one of my fear every single day um until today until at this moment speaking with you right now make me um have sometimes would have goosebumps or make me feel cold because i am afraid what if i said this what if this thing that i said would cause this damage or that damage to my family what happened will they take away my my brother's um rights to go to school because they did it with me before they tried to threaten my student status with my father and will they do that to me well uh to to my brothers will they take away my stepmom's job will they find my my other family relatives will they do this it's i'm in constant fear but i have come this far i didn't come this far just to come this far to stop uh i will continue and i am a very greedy person uh i haven't seen a positive change yet i am not going to stop until i get what i want so um as a quick follow-up and then i think we have i mean there's a lot of questions but just because of time let me try to go with two more questions after this but but as part of this you've also put yourselves at some risk with this as well so now obviously there is um you know you've both sort of indicated that you probably are not going to be going back to china able to go back to china safely and in the near future um anyhow did you have you a kitty you talked a little bit about it but but feel free to to jump in to do you worry you know at what point did you decide the risk that i had no choice but to take this risk for yourself for when i first started instead of thinking about me i think more about like whether my actions would bring risk to my parents or my like it's like whether it's like maybe my mother's would suffer more or maybe my father's would detain small it detains too so that's why i speak out that's why that's also why i was silent at the beginnings uh so the reason why i started to speak out and i think that's a good time is the first is i lost the hope of the chinese governments to unconditionally release my mothers and i also afraid that is if i don't speak up if i don't speak if i just stay silent and if my mother ended up perish or just like i don't want to put it this way but if my mother's just die or just just like have any serious problems in the concentration camp or prisons wherever she is currently in i would not forgive i i will i won't forgive myself forever so that's why i decided to speak out and i also think since i am the only like in my family i am the only i am the only family member that is currently living in a foreign country in a foreign country i had this responsibility to speak up for my mother um and i agree with what everything i think i just said that um i also had that thought if i remain silent um because i was afraid i will i know for a fact that i will be i will feel the regret every single minute in the rest of my life and also yeah i had times that i was worried for my own safety and and well as what my father said well everything every problem has a solution and and and when you see a problem you need to fix it or try to come up with a solution so i did imagine myself being kidnapped one day or well um i practiced judo and jujitsu and that's my solution and i constantly work out so i'm a very strong woman so and i try my best to to be safe and um and i am very careful with with with with um my my words as well and um i as long as i don't do anything illegal then then should be fine and just to clarify your family is all still in child you're also the only family member that's that's here okay i want to ask two more questions that came out of the the group and then and then we will um thank you for being here and and claire i'm going to ask you to come in on this question too and this comes from louisa grieve at uh rp um and the question is um what is the responsibility of american universities um and scholars who have cooperation with the chinese ministry of education at a time when so many Uighur and kazakh university professors and teachers are victims of a genocide for example should they do the same thing as the clothing companies cut off ties with the ministry that is complicit um in genocide and obviously claire you might be able to help us with the sar some thoughts from the sar position but also you know we should not forget that we have the daughters of two scholars here um who you know who very much were persecuted in that same um context i'm happy to start um i mean it's a i don't think that there is a clear answer um however i would say that um in in our experience it's better to keep the door open for conversation to ensure that you have the ability to ask questions they ask you know government officials why give them an opportunity to explain even if you know even if you think you know the answer even if we are disappointed with the answer but to maintain an opportunity to you know ask questions and maintain dialogue is incredibly important so in general and i'm sure there are exceptions and in general you know we find that boycotts and similar actions are less useful um because they don't allow you to have a dialogue about an issue um it's i mean that being said this is an incredibly difficult and severe you know situation and people's lives are at stake and so i can see where some nuance in that strategy would be necessary um you know however i think those who do have you know relationships with government officials in china um should before choosing to cut any ties ask them why are you doing this and um please stop and so using that relationship to your advantages um you know where possible incredibly important um but i would love to hear from johar nakita as well on that question i really agree with what claire said that um first of all i think the u.s education system is highly valued in china um that is why there's so many parents in china have been trying to send their kids to to to us to seek for higher education and uh therefore i think there's an leverage there's leverage there and if you completely cut off and let's say boycott it then you can't ask train the trans government to do anything um that is why i as claire said that um then there's there won't be any room for discussion and i think um well my father his his key his key is always a dialogue and he always promotes dialogue and i do believe the the the value um the importance of dialogue and um i think um completely cutting off any ties with china throughout the education system might do more harm than good and yeah that's just my personal perspective did you have something to add akita i'm sorry uh yes i can edit sums for what's the the institutions university can do so uh if so one of the things like i live like i live near the university of washington's and i really hope that the school the schools can host more like events about the bigger issues and advocated people on the campus advocated the officials in the schools about what is happening to weakers if this is happening i will be i will leave all of my works and just jump into the campus to be our speakers but i didn't see this kind of activity going on in the campus and i hope that the student like student associations in the campus can also host more event about the weaker issues like this crisis and like educating like take this responsibility but i still didn't see uh these actions actions going on and so what i suggest is except all of the things that jeff has and the clears talk about one thing to add is the institutions might create my host more events to educated people on what's happening and this is also okay one of the ways to pressures the chinese government's to stop these atrocities and also um also we cannot blame i can i don't want to blame this blame this on the university itself i think i also need to take the responsibility so my responsibility right now is since the institutions or student associations didn't take this responsibility haven't take this responsibility i will send the letter to the student associations i will contact the university like universities and i will ask them and like hey this is what's going on on weakers could you create events related to that to that related could you could use host and events to educate as people on what's going on and i hopes all the people who wanted to help in weaker issues can also do that yeah thanks and you've both been so generous with your time to so many i know institutions and classes to help to help keep this conversation going and the dialogue going and keeping it in the air um i want to close with uh there there's a a lot of variations of this question i'm going to ask and the simple one is how do you stay hopeful um how do you um you know how do you how do you what do you hope for is an imagined world how do you keep believing it it will get there um way uh there's um um yeah i won't read you all the questions but that's sort of the there's several questions of just how do you keep going how do you how do you stay hoping stay hopeful when you see so much um so much going on that that must um be discouraging you know um in the world and in your with your families and everything um uh i'd like to answer it with a little humor and i guess it runs in my blood the positivity just runs in my blood i got it from my father he was a very very positive man and um um the night after he was sentenced i'm just sharing this little anecdote uh the night after he's sentenced when he was sentenced for life my father told his lawyer thank god this is the only this is the one the first time i was able to have a good night's sleep after the nine months of being arrested the detention of nine months and the lawyer was shocked he just got sentenced to life why were you able to sleep well and my father's answer was i wasn't given given a death penalty it's just life sentence there's still hope and my father's a very hopeful he always kept giving himself very hopeful and he always told me to be positive growing up that's how he raised me and i uh i see someone asked um in in the in the questions that uh if the um do you see the light at the end of the tunnel and would you continue advocating for orders even when your parents are released one day i would like to answer to that um i do believe one day my father will be released and i do believe affidavit's mother will be released one day and i i know that that day will definitely come it's a matter of time and i will continue i believe affidavit i'm not going to speak for you but i myself i will continue my fight until i see every single innocent worker is released and it is my duty as a human being i guess this is my chance to speak out of this and my answer is similar to javel so first of all why i stay positive is because i need energy to fulfill my responsibilities right now it's like uh i have a big like big rock on my shoulders and i need to carry this rock on my own so if i don't stay positive and uh if i don't stay energetic i won't finish enough activism for my for my for my family members and uh if i this is what chinese government wants they want me to devastated lose all of the hopes and stop doing what i am doing that is why it's in that is why it's like aside from my activism i also do something funny to share myself up like watching a cat videos or doing anything i want and the reasons i'm still hopeful to the humanity is everything's have two sides like we see the attack we see the prosecutions we see some ignorance from people's but we also see some support we some encouraging world and even some people they are not wiggers but they are dedicating their times like all of the i love the panelists all of the like people who are attending these events they wanted to do what they are times to care for and ethnic groups who is currently going through going through going through such a horrible thing so i think i should focus on those focus my attention to those good peoples and believe in humanity believe in the humanity thank you and you know for the the hope and positivity that you both bring to this is so important for all of the people who you who you're talking about that um um that that want to help and work where who feel so that it feels so impossible to some of us and um and yet seeing your hope and your positivity and your belief and in change and the belief you'll see your parents and the belief you know that i have that i will meet both of your parents which i cannot wait to do um inspires people like me and and all these other people that akia mentioned to to to keep doing the work um i apologize for all the quest people we didn't get to questions to it's we've been about an hour and 15 minutes now um so i think we're nearing the end but i want to turn it back over to betsy to to close us out here claire did you have any final remarks before i close us out all right i i just echo adam and mainly want to say thank you to everybody for your time and especially to you jahar and akita and betsy and adam but to jahar and akita most especially for sharing these insights and helping us all you know do what we can to support you and your father and your mother and um because we want to we want to help and i'm i'm sure that the many students and partners on this call feel the same way so please do let us know when there's an opportunity for action and i just would like to add um johar and akita you too are remarkable women and just i'm so so honored that you're here tonight and you really lit the light of activism in me and um i think the word does need to be spread to a lot of people i was talking to my family about it today and they really knew very little so i think we all as much as we can need to go out and talk about this issue um so i do hope we'll see you again soon and you'll come back for another um talking in the library johar's been here for a couple of them already and um to all of our participants thank you so much for coming and i hope you got as much out of this as we did and um please pay attention to the library website where we'll have future events like this thank you so much everybody