Ilham Tohti sentenced to life imprisonment

I suppose I shouldn't be shocked any more by this kind of thing, but I think I was not alone even among cynics in being taken aback by the harshness of the life sentence imposed on Ilham Tohti, a professor in Beijing of Uighur ethnicity, on charges of separatism. In an orgy of vindictiveness, the authorities, in addition to the gross mistreatment in detention and the sentence itself, extended punishment to his family by confiscating all his (and his wife's, under China's laws of marital property) assets, thus reducing them to penury.

Even if you think separatism is a heinous crime, the charges in this case were utterly bogus: Ilham ("Tohti" is his father's name, not a surname) is well known as someone who does not support independence for Xinjiang. I have met him and talked about these very issues. He does support more genuine autonomy for Xinjiang and for less repressive policies toward Uighurs. He has criticized the government. (These points are all true of a number of Han Chinese, too, but they have not been thrown into jail.) Apparently that was enough.

As many people have pointed out, jailing and intimidating Ilham and moderates like him is just about exactly the most counter-productive path on could imagine for the Chinese government to follow. They don't want moderate Uighurs; do they prefer radicals?