The Chinese government should quash the conviction and release Ilham Tohti, the prominent Uyghur economist and government critic, on the 10th anniversary of his sentencing, Human Rights Watch said today.

In 2014, the Xinjiang People’s High Court convicted Professor Tohti on politically motivated charges of “separatism” and sentenced him to life in prison. His family has not been allowed to visit him since early 2017 and he is believed to have been in solitary confinement since his arrest.

“The life sentence for Ilham Tohti marked the beginning of the Chinese government’s severe crackdown on the Uyghur region in 2014,” said Maya Wang, associate China director at Human Rights Watch. “Tohti’s life imprisonment for his peaceful criticism and torturous solitary confinement reflects the Chinese government’s heightened repression and relentless abuses against Uyghurs.”

Tohti, 54, was teaching at Central University of Nationalities of China when he established “Uighurs Online,” a website aimed “to provide Uyghurs and Hans with a platform for discussion and exchange” in late 2005. The Chinese government shut down the website in 2008 and sentenced the manager, Gheyret Niyaz, now 65, to 15 years in prison in 2010 for “endangering state security.”

At least six of Tohti’s students, Abduqeyum Ablimit, Perhat Halmurat, Akbar Imin, Mutellip Imin, Shohret Nijat, and Atikem Rozi, are believed to have been sentenced to between three-and-a-half and eight years in prison in 2014, based on a document leaked to Xinjiang Victims Database. It is unclear whether they were released when their sentences ended.

[Edit typo.]