OTTAWA – In April 2025, Mehmet Tohti received what appeared to be a routine message on WhatsApp. The sender claimed to be a well-known Uyghur film director and ethnomusicologist — someone Tohti, a leading Uyghur-Canadian rights advocate based in Ottawa, had every reason to trust. The director wanted to send him something official by email. Could Tohti share his address?
Tohti knew better than most what it meant to be a target of Beijing.
