AFP, 27 June 2014

Beijing (AFP) – Authorities in China’s restive Xinjiang denied food for 10 days to a prominent Uighur academic detained on separatism charges, his lawyer told AFP Thursday, as nine in the region were sentenced for terror offences.

Chinese police detained outspoken economics professor Ilham Tohti in January, before accusing him of “separatism” — which can carry the death penalty — prompting condemnation from the US, EU and international rights groups.

While under detention in March, Tohti “wasn’t given anything to eat, just a single glass of water which he drank for 10 days, drinking a little each day,” said his attorney Li Fangping, shortly after meeting his client for the first time since he was held.

“It had an effect (on his health),” Li said, adding that it was probably intended as a punishment for failing to co-operate with the authorities, as Tohti has consistently refused to admit to the charges.

Tohti, who taught at a university in Beijing, has been a vocal critic of the government’s policies toward his mostly Muslim Uighur minority, who are concentrated in Xinjiang in China’s far west.

Xinjiang sees sporadic violent attacks, which Beijing blames on terrorists seeking independence for the region, and which have grown more frequent over the last year and spread outside the region for the first time.

Rights groups blame unrest in Xinjiang on cultural and religious repression of Uighurs.

The US State Department and the EU both condemned Tohti’s arrest, while advocacy group Amnesty International has called for his release.

– Anti-terror crackdown –

Beijing blamed militants from Xinjiang for an explosive attack in the regional capital Urumqi which killed 31 people in May, and for a March stabbing spree at a train station in the southwestern city of Kunming which killed 29 people.

Tohti began to be denied food shortly after the Kunming attack, Li said, adding that his client had also launched a 10-day hunger strike of his own in January.

China’s President Xi Jinping last month called for a year long anti-terror crackdown, which has already led to several executions and hundreds of detentions, according to state-run media.

Nine people were sentenced to up to 14 years’ jail for terror-related offences at a public rally with 3,000 spectators in Xinjiang on Wednesday, officials said.

They faced charges including preaching jihad, incitement to subversion of state power, inciting ethnic separatism and crossing the border to take part in terror organisations, according to a verified government social media account.

Dilshat Rexit, spokesman for the overseas-based World Uyghur Congress, condemned the mass sentencing, which he argued deprived the defendants of their rights and was marked by a lack of transparency.

“Forced repression will lead more Uighurs to resist Chinese rule,” he said.

China’s President Xi Jinping has cracked down on dissent since ascending to power in 2012, and authorities have detained dozens of government critics, with several sentenced to jail.

Xinjiang regional government chairman Nur Bekri said in March that the charges against Tohti were “irrefutable”, according to China’s official Xinhua news agency, suggesting he will receive a heavy sentence.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/24331362/china-uighur-scholar-denied-food-in-detention-lawyer/