Uighur scholar’s life sentence by China court called human rights abuse

BEIJING – A Chinese court convicted a moderate Uighur scholar of separatism and sentenced him to life in prison Tuesday following what human rights advocates called “a show trial” likely to worsen ethnic tensions in the far west of China.

The scholar, Ilham Tohti, had operated a website critical of Chinese policies against Uighurs, Turkic-speaking Muslims who call China’s Xinjiang region their homeland. Authorities arrested him at his home in Beijing in January, following several years of detentions and official harassment.

Along with handing down a life sentence to the 44-year-old economics professor, the court confiscated all of his possessions, according to his lawyers and state media. That means Ilham Tohti’s wife and two young sons may soon be destitute.

Human rights groups deplored the verdict and the trial, which was held last week in a closed court in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital. Several said there was nothing in Ilham Tohti’s writings or recent history to suggest he supports Xinjiang’s independence movement.

“This shameful judgment has no basis in reality. Ilham Tohti worked to peacefully build bridges between ethnic communities and for that he has been punished through politically motivated charges,” William Nee, China researcher at Amnesty International, said in a statement.

Sophie Richardson, the China director of Human Rights Watch, called on foreign governments, especially those that have human rights dialogues with China, to condemn the life sentence. “An incredibly harsh sentence, unprecedented for a prominent activist in China in recent memory,” Maya Wang, a Human Rights Watch researcher, wrote on Twitter.

Before his arrest, Ilham Tohti taught economics at Beijing’s Minzu University of China and was a founder of UighurOnline, a website that focused on Chinese treatment of Uighurs. While Ilham Tohti has been highly critical of what he calls Beijing’s exclusionary policies toward his people, he advocated dialogue between Uighurs and Han Chinese. He also repeatedly declared that he had no interest in becoming a political figure.

With Tuesday’s sentencing, China’s government seems to be sending a message that any Uighur dissent, even that from a well-known and cautious intellectual, will not be tolerated.