China charges prominent Uygur professor Ilham Tohti with separatism
Wife of arrested professor calls charge ridiculous
Authorities in China’s restive far western region of Xinjiang have charged a prominent ethnic Uygur professor with separatism, his wife and lawyer said on Tuesday, in a case which has attracted concern in the United States and Europe.
Police in Beijing last month detained Ilham Tohti, a well-known economist who has championed the rights of the Muslim Uygur community, who come from Xinjiang. He was subsequently taken to Xinjiang’s regional capital Urumqi.
This is ridiculous. He’s never done anything like this. He is a teacher
Tohti’s wife, Guzailai Nuer, said she had received a notice that his arrest had been formally approved and he was being charged with separatism.
“This is ridiculous. He’s never done anything like this. He is a teacher,” she told reporters by telephone from her house in Beijing.
Tohti’s lawyer, Li Fangping, said that he would try and see his client on Wednesday, but he had so far not been given access.
“We’ll see how things go in the morning,” Li said from Urumqi where Tohti is being held in a detention centre.
Reuters was unable to reach the Xinjiang government for comment.
The case against Tohti is the latest sign of the government’s hardening stance on dissent in Xinjiang, where unrest in the past year has killed more than 100, including several police, according to state media.
Rights activists say Tohti has challenged the government’s version of several incidents involving Uygurs, including what China says was its first major suicide attack, in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in October, involving militants from Xinjiang, by pointing out inconsistencies in the official accounts.
Tohti, an economics professor at Beijing’s Minzu University which specialises in ethnic minority studies, told reporters in November that state security agents had physically threatened him for speaking to foreign reporters.
Many Uygurs chafe at restrictions on their culture and religion, although the Chinese government insists it grants them broad freedoms.
China has blamed some of the violence on Islamist militants and separatists who want to establish an independent state called East Turkestan.
But rights groups and exiles say China exaggerates the threat to justify its firm grip on energy-rich Xinjiang, which borders Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
