Jailed Uighur Ilham Tohti wins European Parliament Sakharov rights award The European Parliament awards the Sakharov Prize for human rights to Uighur intellectual Ilham Tohti, sentenced to life imprisonment in China for "separatism". The outspoken former professor of economics at a Beijing university was sentenced in 2014 by Chinese courts to life imprisonment in a trial that provoked an outcry from foreign governments and human rights organisations. FILE PHOTOS