Armed policemen stand guard near Xinjiang tourism advertisement boards, which authorities used to block off the road heading to the Urumqi People’s Intermediate Court
A high-profile Muslim Uighur scholar and government critic denied allegations that he engaged in separatism as he went on trial yesterday in China’s far western region of Xinjiang, where authorities say terrorists are seeking an independent state.
Ilham Tohti, a former economics professor in Beijing, is accused of fanning ethnic hatred and advocating the overthrow of Chinese rule in Xinjiang. Ilham Tohti’s supporters say he is a moderate who has sought a middle road in resolving the region’s ethnic tensions and that his critiques of Chinese policy have always stayed within the law.
One of his lawyers, Liu Xiaoyuan, said Ilham Tohti denied the allegations in court yesterday.
“He’s against separatism,” Liu said during an afternoon pause in the court proceedings. “He has only talked about some of the legal and cultural issues of Xinjiang. He’s against splitting the country.”
Ilham Tohti’s trial, being held under tight security at the Urumqi People’s Intermediate Court, was expected to last two days, but it was not clear when a verdict would be announced. Foreign journalists were not allowed inside, court officials announced no details and the court’s telephone number rang unanswered.
Police formed a several-block perimeter around the venue with tape, keeping away journalists, bystanders and several Western diplomats who traveled to Urumqi in attempts to witness the trial. Around noon, police blocked views of the street leading to the courthouse with eight tall panels that had been used to promote the China-Eurasia Expo in Xinjiang earlier this month.
Liu said Illham Tohti appeared in casual clothes and was not wearing handcuffs. Four of his family members — including his wife, Guzulnur — were allowed to attend the proceedings.
“He’s never done anything illegal,” Guzulnur said during the afternoon break. “He’s never talked about separating the country. He’s never opposed the government. He’s never opposed the people. He’s a scholar.”
She said her husband’s health was not good. Previously, another of Ilham Tohti’s lawyers, Li Fanping, had said the scholar was shackled for more than a month while in lockup.
European Union diplomat Raphael Droszewski said the EU has expressed its deep concern over the indictment of Ilham Tohti and that the bloc has “urged China’s government to release him and offer health care,” noting that he had worked “peacefully within China’s laws.”
Ilham Tohti has long been a critic of what he has called the systematic exclusion of Uighurs from the economic benefits brought to Xinjiang by incoming members of China’s Han majority, and has sought to prevent the Turkic Uighur language and culture from being marginalized.
He was arrested in Beijing earlier this year amid an uptick in violence in Xinjiang linked to separatist militants, and authorities have blamed him for fomenting some of the unrest. More than 300 people have been killed over the past year and a half, nearly half of them suspects shot down by police in a strike-hard campaign launched by the government to fight what it calls terrorist cells in the region.
Ilham Tohti had in the past warned that Chinese authorities might overdo their anti-terrorism measures to conceal incompetence of local governments in Xinjiang.
Last October, when three Uighurs killed six people, including themselves, in a fiery car crash at central Beijing’s Tiananmen Gate, Ilham Tohti urged authorities to make public their evidence corroborating findings that it was a terrorist attack, and he voiced concerns that a crackdown on Uighurs would become overly harsh.
Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the Germany-based advocacy group World Uyghur Congress, called Ilham Tohti’s trial a “persecution,” and said it would exacerbate tensions between Uighurs and China’s leadership.
“China hopes to deter all conscientious Uighur intellectuals through the accusations against Ilham, force them to accept and spread China’s enslaving policies,” he said. Jack Chang, Urumqi, AP
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