In sentencing Uighur academic Ilham Tohti to life the authorities in Beijing have signalled once again that they intend to treat the mildest of dissent as equivalent to terrorism, and that even discussion of minority ethnic rights will be crushed. The sentence has rightly provoked international uproar.
Tohti, a former economics professor at Minzu University of China in Beijing, has been the country's most prominent advocate of rights of, and greater autonomy for, the Muslim Uighur people from the vast, sparsely-populated Xinjiang territory in western China. His friends say he has never advocated independence for Xinjiang, has condemned violent separatism, and is proud to be Chinese. He is the latest moderate intellectual, like imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, to be jailed by President Xi Jinping's administration.
Tohti was convicted on charges of organising a separatist group – a website discussion forum – and the court also ordered the confiscation of all of his personal property. Xinhua, China’s official news agency, citing the verdict, said he had “spread lessons containing separatist thoughts via the website [Uighur] Online... He bewitched and coerced young ethnic students to work for the website and built a criminal syndicate.” The charge of separatism carries a maximum penalty of death.
During his detention, supporters say, Tohti was tortured, denied food, shackled and denied access to lawyers for the first five months. “I’m innocent, I protest,” he shouted to the court in regional capital Urumqi before the judge ordered police officers to drag him out.
More than 200 people have died in Xinjiang-related violence since last spring. Islamist militants there want to establish an independent state called East Turkestan . It is a majority Uighur – a Turkic-speaking people – region, but Han Chinese now make up more than 40 per cent of the population. They are strongly supportive of Beijing’s harsh crackdown, and there have been increasing clashes, including killings, involving both communities.