Jewher Ilham: A Uyghur’s Fight to Free Her Father

When Jewher Ilham’s father, Ilham Toti, was detained at the Beijing airport in February 2013 on charges of separatism, Jewher had two choices: she could stay in China or fly to America alone. Jewher boarded the plane for Indiana and began a new life apart from her family and was half a world away when her father was sentenced to life in prison.

Through a series of interviews with novelist Adam Braver and scholar Ashley Barton, Jewher recounted her father’s nightmare and her own transition from student to eloquent advocate for the Uyghur people. The resulting book, Jewher Ilham: A Uyghur’s Fight to Free Her Father, is an intimate, exclusive portrait that U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown calls proof that Jewher and her people will not be silenced.