The United Nations on Monday abruptly cancelled a speech by a prominent exiled Uyghur scholar and linguist barely 24 hours before he was to address a Paris conference on language technologies, he told Radio Free Asia. In an email to Norway-based researcher Abduweli Ayup shown to RFA Uyghur, organizers provided no reason for rescinding the invitation to speak at the Language Technologies for All, or LT4ALL, conference, under the umbrella of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO.
But Ayup said the reason was likely because he questioned an earlier presenter about protections for the Uyghur language in China, where some 12 million Uyghurs live in the northwestern region of Xinjiang.
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