An outspoken academic who championed China’s Uighur minority was convicted of separatism yesterday by a Chinese court and sentenced to life in prison, according to his lawyers.
The Urumqi People’s Intermediate Court convicted Ilham Tohti after a heavily guarded two-day trial that ended last week, lawyer Li Fangping (李方平) said by telephone outside the courthouse.
The court did not answer several telephone calls yesterday seeking information about the trial.
Li said the court also ordered the confiscation of all of Ilham Tohti’s possessions.
Tohti had been calm during the proceeding, but shouted out “I don’t agree” when the sentence was read, Li said.
He was known as a moderate voice with ties to both the country’s Han Chinese establishment and the Muslim Uighur ethnic group that has long complained about what they say is harsh treatment under the government.
A Chinese Communist Party member and professor at Beijing’s Minzu University, Tohti ran a Web site, Uighur Online, that highlighted issues affecting the ethnic group. Chinese authorities detained the academic in January, along with seven of his students.
“Of course, this life sentence is too much,” Li said. “But he has said that no matter what the result, this should not lead to hatred. He has always said he wants to create a dialogue with the Han Chinese.”
Yesterday’s sentence will leave Tohti’s wife, Guzulnur, with no means to take care of their two young children, Li said.
Human rights activists said the harsh sentence revealed the Chinese government’s intolerance of criticism from even the most conciliatory of voices.
During the trial, prosecutors had cited Tohti’s lectures and online writings, including his discussion of the different roots of Han Chinese and Uighur peoples.
“It’ll send a strong signal to [Uighur academics] there’s not much to be gained to take some risks and personal initiative to bridge the gap between what obviously people on the ground are feeling, severe discontent with the way things are going, and explaining them to Han policymakers,” Hong Kong-based Amnesty International researcher William Nee said.
The outraged response was immediate online from human rights activists and artists.
Chinese writer Wang Lixiong (王力雄) said via Twitter the government had created a “Chinese Mandela,” referring to former South African president Nelson Mandela, who was jailed for 27 years before becoming president.
Columbia University Tibet specialist Robert Barnett called the sentence “deeply shocking” on Twitter.
Tensions have run high and flared into violence in the Xinjiang region where many of China’s Uighurs live. Authorities said several explosions killed two people on Sunday in central Xinjiang, but did not say who carried out the attacks.
In May, police said, 43 people died when Uighur militants plowed two vehicles through a market street in the regional capital of Urumqi and hurled explosives.
After the recent violence, authorities have prohibited people in the region from having beards or wearing veils, and locals say many have been detained for speaking out about the situation there.
Tohti’s 20-year-old daughter, Jewher Ilham, yesterday said from Indiana, where she is studying, that she would continue to fight for her father’s release.
The authorities arrested her father in January last year in Beijing’s main airport as he was boarding a plane to take her to school in the US.
“He wanted me to stay in a land that has freedom,” she said. “I’m speaking out for him. I won’t stop.”
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