Guzaili Nuer (left), wife of Ilham Tohti, a former economics professor at a university in Beijing,  talks to the media as lawyer Li Fangping  walks by near the Urumqi Intermediate People’s Court yesterday.

AFP/Urumqi

Chinese authorities put a prominent scholar from the mostly-Muslim Uighur minority on trial for separatism yesterday as critics warned the prosecution will worsen tensions in violence-wracked Xinjiang.

Ilham Tohti, a former economics professor at a university in Beijing, denied the charges - which carry a life sentence - at a court in the regional capital Urumqi.

“We don’t see anything in the evidence presented which constitutes separatism,” Li Fangping, Tohti’s lawyer, told reporters outside the heavily-guarded courthouse. “He was just a scholar expressing his views.”

Guzaili Nuer, Tohti’s wife, was accompanied by several of his brothers and appeared distraught.

“He has never opposed the country or any ethnic group,” she said. “He has never done anything like that.”

She added that her husband, 44, had denied the charges but remained calm during the hearing.

The Uighur homeland Xinjiang has seen escalating violence between locals and security forces in the past year, with hundreds dead, and Beijing has launched a crackdown on “separatists” and “terrorists”.

But the US, European Union, and several human rights groups have called for the release of Tohti, an outspoken critic of China’s policies towards Uighurs in the far western region.

“Ilham Tohti worked peacefully within Chinese laws, and we believe he should be released,” Raphael Droszewski, first secretary for political affairs at the EU mission in China, told reporters in Urumqi as the trial was set to begin.

He was among nine diplomats from countries including Germany, Britain and Canada who had travelled to Urumqi to observe the proceedings but were barred from entering the court.

Several dozen police officers, some in plain clothes and others clad in riot gear, were standing guard outside the building and had blocked off the surrounding streets.

Calls to the Intermediate People’s Court by AFP went unanswered.

Tohti was detained in January after he condemned the government’s response to a suicide car attack in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square which the government blamed on separatists from Xinjiang. His prosecution — almost certain to result in a guilty verdict — risks silencing moderate Uighur voices and cutting off the possibility of dialogue, critics say.

Prosecutors cited posts on Tohti’s website Uighur Online and the contents of his lectures at the Minzu University in Beijing to accuse him of leading a separatist group, according to his attorney Li.

In interviews, Tohti has stated his opposition to independence or separatism.

“Tohti has consistently, courageously, and unambiguously advocated peacefully for greater understanding and dialogue between various communities, and with the state,” said Sophie Richardson, China director for US-based campaign group Human Rights Watch.

 

 

 

 

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