Posted 19 September 2014 12:02 GMT
Maya Wang posted two photos comparing the outlook of Ilham Tohti before and after the detention on Twitter.
Ilham Tohti, a prominent Uyghur scholar in China who founded a website that promoted understanding between the ethnic minority and the country’s Han Chinese majority, was put on trial for two days on charges of separatism this week.
Ilham, who is an advocate for peaceful ethnic reconciliation between the Uyghur Muslims and the Han Chinese, was arrested in January. The relationship between the two groups has been tumultuous; ethnic tensions have at times resulted in deadly clashes between Uyghur activists and authorities.
The state’s propaganda machine has claimed that Ilham was connected to the World Uyghur Congress, an overseas group that has been labelled as an extreme separatist group by the Chinese Communist Party. He is also accused of inciting his students to support separatism and spreading dissent through the the website he founded, Uyghur Online, which covered social issues from a Uyghur perspective.
Ilham has denied the accusations. During the trial, his lawyers shot down authorities’ insistence that Ilham belonged to a separatist group.
The Urumqi Intermediate People’s Court’s verdict is expected to be released next week.
Some believe his arrest and prosecution could provoke or worsen ethnic conflicts in the western Xinjiang region, where the Uyghur people mainly live. During Ilham’s eight-month detention, his family was forbidden to see him and his lawyers, Liu Xiaoyuan and Li Fangping, told the media that he was chained with leg irons and denied access to food and warm clothes.