Seven students of a jailed Uygur scholar have been sentenced to varied prison terms after being found guilty of fomenting separatism in China’s restive northwestern Xinjiang province.
Six of the seven students, who worked for the ‘Uygur Online’ website run by the scholar Ilham Tohti, were of Uygur ethnicity, while one belonged to Yi minority community.
Officials have earlier described Uygur Online as “a platform to create conflicts, spread separatist thinking, incite ethnic hatred and advocate ‘Xinjiang independence’”, state-run Global Times reported.