A Chinese court in Xijiang handed down sentences of between three and eight years in prison to seven students of Uighur scholar Ilham Tohti, who is serving life sentence.
Tohi’s lawyer, Li Fangping, told reporters on Tuesday that the students of Tohi were sentenced on Monday by the intermediate court in Urumqi on charge of “separatist activities.”
According to Chinese official news, the Global Times, six of the students were Uighurs and one is a Yi, an ethnic group that lives in southern Chinese provinces that are border to Vietnam and Thailand.