US, EU outraged over life sentence for Uighur scholar

BEIJING: Outraged Western powers have rounded on China over a life sentence handed to a prominent Uighur academic, accusing Beijing of silencing a moderate voice in a move that analysts say risks inflaming tensions in the restive Xinjiang region.

A court in China’s far western Xinjiang region on Tuesday sentenced Ilham Tohti—a persistent but moderate government critic who advocated for the rights of the mostly-Muslim Uighur minority—to life in prison on charges of “separatism.”