China’s Sentencing of High-Level Uyghur Officials to Death Stuns Critics, Who Demand Evidence

China’s recent sentencing of two high-level Uyghur officials to death has stunned critics who have questioned the legality of the decision given the lack of evidence against them and say the move shows that even Uyghurs loyal to the Communist Party cannot escape persecution in Xinjiang.

On April 6, authorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) announced that Shirzat Bawudun, former director of the justice in the XUAR High Court and deputy secretary of the XUAR Political and Legal Committee, and Sattar Sawut, former director of education of the XUAR, had been given two-year suspended death sentences for “separatism” and “terrorism.”

Additionally, they announced that the court sentenced both of them to permanent deprivation of political rights and confiscation of all personal property.

While several other prominent Uyghurs have been given death sentences since authorities in the region launched a campaign of extralegal incarceration that has seen up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities held in a vast network of internment camps beginning in early 2017, this marks the first occasion on which high-ranking government officials have been given the death penalty.

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