PUBLISHED ON FRIDAY 1 AUGUST 2014.
After being held for six months, Ilham Tohti has been formally charged with separatism
Ilham Tohti, an ethnic Uyghur economist at Beijing’s Central University for Nationalities and editor of the Uygurbiz.com information website, was formally charged on 30 July with “separatism,” a crime that carries the death penalty.
Regarded as a dissident by the Chinese authorities, Tohti was held incommunicado and denied food for the first ten days after his arrest on 15 January. He has also been denied his defence rights, including any visit from his lawyer for the first five months.
This baseless charge suggests that the authorities now want to silence him for good.
Uygurbiz.com promotes cultural exchanges between China’s Uyghur and Han peoples. Tohti was arrested at his Beijing home shortly after expressing concern about the growing crackdown in the western province of Xinjiang, which has a large Uyghur population. He was taken to Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital, following his arrest.