The Obama administration expressed
its outrage Tuesday after a Chinese court sentenced the country’s most
prominent advocate for the rights of Muslim Uighur people to life in
prison. Economics professor Ilham Tohti, 44, stood trial for two days
last week on separatism charges in the western region of Xinjiang.
"I'm innocent, I
protest," Tohti shouted to the court before the judge ordered police
officers to drag him out of the courthouse, according to Tohti's lawyer,
Li Fangping. Tohti, who is an ethnic Uighur, is the latest moderate
intellectual to be convicted by Chinese President Xi Jinping's
administration.
Secretary of State John
Kerry said the United States was "deeply disturbed" by Tohti's sentence.
"Peaceful dissent is not a crime," Kerry said in a statement. "This
harsh sentence appears to be retribution for Professor Tohti's peaceful
efforts to promote human rights for China's ethnic Uighur citizens."
President Barack Obama
said the United States was "standing in solidarity" with people who have
been detained, including Tohti and imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize
Laureate Liu Xiaobo. In a statement, the European Union condemned the
sentence, calling it "completely unjustified".
In China, Tohti is
regarded as an outspoken intellectual who has repeatedly criticized the
government for not giving Xinjiang and its Uighurs more autonomy. His
eight-month detention and harsh sentence is widely seen as part of a
government crackdown on dissent in Xinjiang.
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