Gulchehra Hoja was a Uyghur TV star in China. Now she’s a journalist in exile

One night in 2018, 24 members of Gulchehra Hoja’s family, including her parents, were arrested by Chinese authorities.

But the Uyghur-American reporter didn’t hear about it until two days later, when a friend called with a question: Did he know his parents had been arrested because of him?

“It was the hardest day of my life,” Hoja said Sunday Magazine Piya Chattopadhyay.

Uighurs are the majority ethnic Muslim minority mainly based in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Hoja and other Uyghurs often refer to the region roughly as East Turkestan.

Human rights organizations estimate that more than one million Uighurs are being held in Chinese detention camps. The United Nations has reported allegations of torture and abuse in the camps; Chinese authorities have repeatedly denied the allegations, calling the location a “vocational education center.”

Hoja fled Xinjiang for the US in 2001, and has reported on human rights abuses in China, including against the Uyghurs, for Radio Free Asia.

But before that, he was one of China’s most valuable propaganda tools, appearing in educational programs for Uyghur children and youth on state television.

He describes the complex path of his life experiences in his new memoir The Most Valuable Stone Where It Is.

Propaganda tool

Hoja said that he did not understand the situation of the Uyghurs as a child, because many children have geopolitical problems.

In the late 90s, while working for local Xinjiang television, he created a children’s program to teach children about the Uyghur language and history.

“Indeed, it is very important for everyone to know who they are; not only Uyghurs, but all children who will have the opportunity to learn and accept who they are, through [their] identity,” he explained.

As a host and entertainer, he is one of the Chinese government’s faces for the Uyghur people – even as the population faces persecution unseen by wider society.

However, things are slowly changing. The state television mandate ended Uyghur lessons, replacing them with Han Chinese content.

“Any media in China is a propaganda tool for the CCP. … I’m learning every day, it’s not the journalism I dream of,” Hoja said.

During a trip to Europe in 2001, he heard Radio Free Asia’s report for the first time, and also witnessed protests against the Chinese government’s human rights violations against the Uyghurs.

“I heard the protesters saying, ‘Get out of East Turkestan. Free East Turkestan. Free Uyghur,'” he recalled.

“I was like, oh my gosh, they can talk [those] word? It’s unbelievable to me.”

Later that year, he ran away from his home in Xinjiang, and became a reporter for Free Radio Asia himself. He is currently based in the US

Harsh conditions in prison

Hoja said her family still living in China was almost immediately threatened by local government officials after she worked abroad. In 2017, Hoja and his father were branded terrorists.

In 2017, his brother was arrested and detained. The following year, his mother was also arrested, when she visited the police station, where she thought her son – Hoja’s younger brother – would be released.

Hoja said she learned that her mother, then 72, was being held in a Uyghur detention center. For the first nine days, he was shackled and given very little water and food. He was only transferred to another part of the detention center after his death, requiring medical attention.

Hoja would learn of his mother’s arrest – along with more than 20 other family members – from that fateful phone call.

He immediately asked US officials to press the Chinese government for his release.

The mother was released on March 10, 2018 – 40 days after her arrest. Brother Hoja and other family members will follow. But now he says he is under house arrest.

Hoja said he does not have regular contact with his family because he fears for his safety. Sometimes they talk on the phone, but rarely because the authorities can listen.

In 2019, the Chinese government released a video of Hoja’s parents and brother refusing their jobs.

She said it was “heartbreaking” to see the video, and believes she was forced to speak against her will. But he was glad to see her face after so many years.

“But the guilt over this is very strong,” he said. “He seems to have changed a lot. And mom [looked] older than I expected.”

‘We don’t have much time’

Hoja wants the world to know the beauty of his homeland and the culture of his people and also speaks out against evil deeds.

“I am [am] so proud to be a Uighur. I like all aspects about Uyghurs: clothes, music, culture, language, food and landscape, our weather,” he said.

Earlier this year, Canada’s House of Commons unanimously approved a non-binding private member’s bill to bring 10,000 Uyghurs and other Muslims of Turkish origin to Canada.

Hoja called this and other initiatives his “greatest hope” for the survival of his people.

“We are just desperately fighting for existence. So whatever [that] can help us preserve our language, preserve our culture – please, whatever you can do,” he said.

“We don’t have much time. We don’t have much chance to save the nation, to save the dream, to save the hope.”