CAST
Ilham Tohti
Jewher Ilham
Abduweli Ayup
Aina Shormanbayeva
Tahir Hamut Izgil
Mihrigul Tursun
Kalbinur Sidik
Gulbahar Jalilova
Ilham Tohti is a father, husband, economist, professor, writer, successful businessman, benefactor to those in need, friend to many, and now -- a political prisoner. He was born in Artush and spent much of his adult life in Beijing as an Economics professor at Minzhu University. In 2005, he founded the website Uyghur Online to promote dialogue and understanding among Uyghurs and Han Chinese. Tohti recognized problems of poverty, environmental degradation, and social unrest and was working toward solutions. However in 2008, the authorities shut down the website permanently, accusing it of inciting violence and separatist activities. After this, Tohti was harassed, monitored, and detained numerous times. In 2013, he was prevented from leaving China with his daughter Jewher for a sabbatical year at Indiana University. On September 23, 2014, after a closed two-day trial, he was found guilty of “separatism” and sentenced to life in prison. Since 2017, he has been held incommunicado with no access to his family or his lawyers. Ilham Tohti has been recognized globally for his work. He is the recipient of the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award (2014), the Martin Ennals Award (2016), the Weimar Human Rights Award (2017), the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize (2019), and the Sakharov Prize (2019). An edited translation of Tohti’s writing is available in We Uyghurs Have No Say. A short autobiography can be found here.
Jewher Ilham is Associate Producer of All Static & Noise, an author, and advocate for the Uyghur community and for her imprisoned father, Uyghur economist Ilham Tohti.. In addition to appearing in the film, Jewher hosted production in Washington, DC and Bloomington, IN. She was hugely instrumental in facilitating community engagement during production and post-production and advised the team on important aspects of the Uyghur experience. She provided expert advice, contributed archival footage, and connected the team with experts, witnesses, and translators. She also brought in many of the film’s participants. Jewher has testified before the U.S. Congress and Senate Foreign Relations Committee, published op-eds in The New York Times, CNN and the Guardian, and received numerous international awards on behalf of her father including the European Parliament’s Sakharov prize. In 2015, she recounted her experiences in her book, Jewher Ilham: A Uyghur’s Fight to Free Her Father. Her second book, Because I Have To: The Path to Survival, the Uyghur Struggle was released in 2022. Jewher currently works at the Worker Rights Consortium as Forced Labor Project Coordinator and serves as a spokesperson for the Coalition to End Uyghur Forced Labour.
Abduweli Ayup is a writer and linguist and a strong promoter of linguistic rights and Uyghur language education. In 2011, after completing a masters degree in linguistics in the United States, Abduweli returned to his homeland and opened Uyghur language schools and kindergartens in Ürümchi and Kashgar. During this period, he was subjected to repeated interrogations and harassment by the Chinese authorities. Abduweli was arrested in August 2013, accused of promoting separatist activity. After 15 months in detention, he fled to Turkey from China with his family in August 2015. In 2019, he and his family relocated to Bergen, Norway where he is a writer-in-residence with the International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN) program. Abuduweli is the founder of Uyghur Hjelp, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting the Uyghur people. To further his commitment to supporting the survival of the Uyghur language, he established a network of Uyghur mother language schools that offer more than 70 Uyghur language classes around the world. He is a prolific writer with nine mother language textbooks and five books. His memoir, Blackland: A Story of Genocide, Exile and The Language of Resistance in Modern China will be published by Selkies House in Fall 2023. In addition to appearing in All Static & Noise, Abduweli hosted production in Turkey, provided expert advice, contributed archival footage, connected the team with experts and witnesses, and supported the translation team.
Aina Shormanbayeva is a human rights lawyer and president of International Legal Initiative one of the leading human rights organizations in Kazakhstan. Aina is engaged in the promotion and protection of civil and political rights, including freedom of association, freedom of peaceful assembly, the rule of law, legal assistance to vulnerable groups, including victims of torture, human trafficking, migrants, refugees, people without housing and documents. An important part of her work is the promotion and protection of human rights of victims of crimes against humanity in Xinjiang. She is author of numerous publications in the field of human rights of migrants, migrant children, criminal and administrative legislation, trafficking in persons, protection of civic space in Kazakhstan, freedom of slavery and freedom of move. In additiion to appearing in All Static & Noise, Aina hosted production in Kazakhstan.
Tahir Hamut lzgil is a prominent modernist Uyghur poet, filmmaker, and activist. A leader in avant-garde Uyghur poetry in the 1990s, he is known for poems and films strongly influenced by Uyghur life. In addition to appearing in All Static & Noise, he contributed much of the footage from the Uyghur region that was taken during a time before police occupation and the camps. Tahir grew up in the ancient city of Kashgar. After attending college in Beijing, he returned to the Uyghur region and emerged as a prominent film director. His poetry has appeared, in Joshua L. Freeman's English translation, in The New York Review of Books, Asymptote, Gulf Coast, and Berkeley Poetry Review. His work has been extensively translated into Chinese, Japanese, French, and Turkish. In 2017, as the Chinese state began the mass internment of the Uyghur people, Tahir fled with his family to the United States. Tahir’s new book, Waiting to Be Arrested at Night: A Uyghur Poet's Memoir of China's Genocide will be released in August 2023.
Mihrigul Tursun is a mother, businesswoman, and concentration camp survivor. She is from Cherchen County in the Southern part of the Uyghur region. At the age of 12, she was sent to Guangzhou for middle school as part of the government’s assimilation program. She studied economics at Guangzhou University and later completed her Masters in Business Administration in Egypt where she met her husband and gave birth to triplets. Following the birth of her children in 2015, she returned to China where she thought her parents could offer assistance with her child care needs. Instead, she was detained three times and separated from her children. During this period, one of her children died in the hands of the Chinese government. She was released from prison in 2018 with the expectation she would return after she took her two children to Egypt. She never went back and instead migrated to the United States. Her husband, who traveled to China in pursuit of his family has been incommunicado for several years. Mihirigul recently learned that he made it back to Egypt, but she is still unable to reach him. Mihrigul and her children are building a new life in the United States together. She completed a certificate program in cyber security where she intends to focus her future professional pursuits. Mihrigul’s story has been featured in Tomomi Shimizu’s graphic novel sensation, What has happened to me – A testimony of a Uyghur woman. Her biography Place of No Return: How I Survived China’s Uyghur Camps, co-authored with Andrea Hoffmann, has been translated into 8 languages.
Kalbinur Sidik, an ethnic Uzbek was born in Ürümchi, went to University in the city and worked as a Chinese language teacher in a local Primary School for 28 years. In 2017, she was forced by the authorities to teach the Chinese language in the “re-education” camp system. After being forced to retire early, she found refuge with her daughter in the Netherlands. Kalbinur has been a vocal advocate for Uyghur and other ethnic minorities subject to the Chinese government’s campaign of oppression. Her story was included in a booklet by Japanese Manga artist Tomomi Shimizu. Kalbinur appears frequently on television and in the global media recounting her experience as a teacher in the camps in the hope of encouraging governments to challenge China’s oppression in the Uyghur region.
Gulbahar Jalilova is an ethnically Uyghur businesswoman with Kazakh nationality. She had been in the clothing business for nearly 20 years buying from Chinese manufactures and exporting to Kazakhstan. Her work required her to travel between China and Kazakhstan with some frequency. On one such business trip in 2017, she was arrested for allegedly being a ‘potential terrorist.’ Gulbahar was taken from her hotel room, interrogated, and detained for 16 months. After much torture and abuse during her detention and petitioning from her family in Kazakhstan, Gulbahar was released. Despite death threats from the Chinese government, she has bravely stepped forth and shared her story in the hope that her people can be saved. Gulbahar now lives near her daughter in Paris where she is trying to build a new life. She has appeared on television and in global media outlets, recounting her story and demonstrating her will to live.