China court rejects appeal by Uyghur scholar
Ruling comes as veteran journalist begins her trial for allegedly leaking state secrets.
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| Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti stands outside a classroom in Beijing in 2010 |
His failed appeal came the same day authorities began another closed trial in which veteran journalist Gao Yu faced charges of leaking “state secrets”.
As with Tohti’s trial in late September, only close family members were permitted to make the 3,200-kilometer trip from Beijing to the appeal hearing in Xinjiang’s capital city Urumqi. Independent observers including foreign diplomats and media were barred, said Tohti’s lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan.
“The final sentence was announced inside his detention center this morning; it violated legal procedure,” he said. “The sentence should be announced openly. I do not agree with the way the authorities conducted this.”
Tohti’s harsh sentence and Gao’s trial have prompted widespread condemnation from international rights groups.
Amnesty International’s China researcher William Nee said the two cases highlighted the “hypocrisy” of President Xi Jinping’s recent campaign to enforce “rule of law” in China.
“At best, the authorities are engaged in an act of double-think — on the one hand emphasizing the importance of the rule of law while on the other encouraging courts to turn a blind eye in ‘sensitive’ cases,” he said ahead of Friday’s hearings.
Tohti, 44, was convicted for inciting Uyghur separatism in Xinjiang amid a surge in violence that has led to the deaths of more than 300 people in China over the past 18 months.
Authorities detained him in mid-January less than two weeks after a television interview in which he questioned the official government version of an attack in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square last October that left five dead, leading to the execution of three Uyghur men in August.
China’s state media said charges also related to Tohti’s lectures at Beijing’s Minzu University in which he was recorded as saying that Xinjiang “firstly belonged to the Uyghur ethnic group”, and not the Han majority.
At least seven of his students were also detained in January. Their whereabouts remain unknown ahead of a trial reportedly due soon.
Before Tohti’s appeal on Friday, authorities seized assets worth 850,000 yuan (US$138,800) prompting complaints from his wife Guzelnur that the case has left their family, including three children, destitute.
“I know I cannot see my husband often,” said Guzelnur, who lives in Beijing. “Urumqi is far away. Transportation is too costly. What’s more, I’m still hiding the truth from our youngest children about where their father has gone.”
Ahead of the trial of Gao, 70, authorities forced her son to leave the Chinese capital amid tight security around the No 3 Intermediate People’s Court.
Among China’s most outspoken journalists, an ailing Gao appeared in the courtroom for four hours with a verdict and sentence expected in the coming days, said lawyer Mo Shaoping.
Evidence that Gao leaked state secrets to someone outside of the country — a charge which is yet to be clarified by Chinese authorities — “failed to be certain, adequate or rule out reasonable suspicion”, Mo added after the trial.
Gao was arrested in May, the charges against her believed to be related to ‘Document No 9’, an internal Communist Party document secretly circulated last year that warns of seven threats to its grip on power, including criticism over China’s traumatic past and “constitutional democracy”.
However, the magazine alleged to be the recipient of the document — US-based Mirror Monthly — has denied it came from Gao, and other Chinese media had published its contents long before her detention.
“Gao Yu’s case is a frontal assault on the freedom of expression and access to information,” said Human Rights Watch’s China director Sophie Richardson ahead of the trial. “China should drop the charge immediately or face widespread international condemnation.”
Although Gao confessed to making a “big mistake” during an unusual confession on state-run CCTV in May, her lawyer has since claimed it was extracted under duress following police threats that they would arrest her son who they briefly detained anyway and later released.
“The confession should not be taken as evidence. It was not in line with the law,” said Mo.
Gao suffers from illnesses including high blood pressure and heart disease. She took medicine twice during Friday’s trial, Mo added.
Twenty years ago she was sentenced to six years for publishing state secrets and was released a year and a half early on health grounds.
With the court all but certain to hand down a guilty verdict, the only doubt is whether Gao will receive the full life sentence available under the charge, as Tohti did in September.
“If Gao Yu and Ilham Tohti were to receive genuinely fair hearings, the charges against them would be dismissed as blatant political persecution,” said Nee of Amnesty.
Source: ucanews.com
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