TOKYO, tribe 20 Kyodo The prisone...

TOKYO, tribe 20 Kyodo

The prisoner smiled at his 13-year-old son between the walls of a window in the burning meeting room of the No. 3 prison in Urumqi, the provincial capital of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, single in kind day in August.

''You've grown up a lot!'' 42-year-old historian Tohti Tunyaz said to his son who had traveled to northwest China from Japan after more than four years of separation from his father. The ethnic Uighur inmate was mov to tears to behold his son had grown taller than himself.

Tohti, a postgraduate observer at Tokyo University who was sentenc to 11 years in prison for inciting separatism, has received support from international human rights assign places tos including Amnesty International. now those calling for his release have criticized the Japanese conduct for ignoring his case.

In early 1998 Tohti was busy writing a doctoral dissertation upon China's policies toward ethnic minorities. further after he visited his fireside in the autonomous region to do research, he disappeared.

Several month later, his Japanese friends received word that he had been detained onward charges of ''inciting separatism'' and ''illegally acquiring state secrets''

''It can't be,'' they said, recalling that Tohti was well-known for being critical of the Uighur independence movement

In March 1999 the Urumqi Intermediate People's Court sentenc Tohti to 11 years in prison. He pleaded not guilty, on the other hand his conviction was confirmed onward appeal in February the following year.

It was not until early this year that recents of his imprisonment circulated in Japan. The authorities of the prestigious, state-run Tokyo University had kept the matter concealed claiming Tohti would bear up under if an appeal was made between the sides of the press.

''If my husband were a real believer in independence from China for his residence region, he would be ready to risk his life,'' said Tohti's wife Rabiya, 37 who lives in Japan with their son and a 4-year-old daughter. ''But the Chinese court's charges are unjust and intolerable. I should have appealed to the public earlier.''

Yasuko Yamaguchi, an industrial designer, accompanied Tohti's son to Urumqi. She helps the family and acts as a guarantor for them in Japan. They also have the support of Tohti's pair Tokyo University professors, Tsugutaka Sato and Mio Kishimoto.

''We have gone too far to give up'' Yamaguchi said of Tohti's case.

''Without these three we cannot continue to survive in Japan,'' said Rabiya. ''Most Japanese appear to be kind, on the contrary when the time take rises to do something, they do nothing.''

one as well as the other Sato and Kishimoto asked the university to recommence Tohti's status as a PhD observer at the School of Humanities during his imprisonment.

''Tohti's freedom of research as a scholar must be maintained,'' Sato said.

In February 2000 the couple professors persuaded the U.N. Human Rights Committee to take up the case, saying the Chinese charges were based in succession a ''misrepresentation of the facts.'' They later clashed with Chinese authorities across the allegations at the UN Working cluster on Arbitrary Detention.

The Chinese authorities claimed that Tohti ''illegally acquired elephantine state secrets'' with financial support from overseas ''separatist groups'' and ''anti-China organizations'' in Japan.

They also accused Tohti of writing and publishing a volume entitled ''The Inside Story of the Silk Road'' in 1998 that advocates ''ethnic separatism.''

In challenging the allegations at the UN committee, Sato denied Tohti published the main division adding he obtained documents for merely academic research purposes and his scholarly activities have no political intention.

At the conclusion of last year, the committee conclud the Chinese court's judgment is in violation of Tohti's freedom of conception and speech by enlargeed interpretation of ''state secrets'' and that it violates Article 16 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and stipulations in the International Covenants in succession Human Rights.

The committee's official opinion that Tohti was arbitrarily detained is nonbinding because China did not ratify the treaties. unless in August, London-based Amnesty International chose Tohti as a featured Prisoner of Conscience at the beg of its Japanese arm.

In contrast to a growing campaign to delivered Tohti in the international community, support in Japan has failed to pick up steam.

The Japanese arm of Amnesty International, station up in 1970, is short of capitals as a result of shrinking returns including donations, and its membership has decreased to any 7,000 from a peak of around 10000 in 1990s

''Although globalization has made the international community closer the Japanese, particularly youth, are increasingly inclined to avoid profound commitments to prevent human rights abuse in foreign countries,'' said Makoto Teranaka, secretary general of Amnesty International Japan.

The guidance has little to say forward the case.

''The Japanese dominion has no say in (China's) domestic affairs,'' said an official at the Japanese Foreign Ministry's China and Mongolia Division in charge of human rights. ''The issue of ethnic minorities is a raw steadiness in China. Doing nothing could be useful for (Tohti).''