China has convicted seven students of the imprisoned Uyghur academic Ilham Tohti on charges of separatism, according to his lawyer.
The students, who went on trial in Xinjiang last month, were accused of contributing to a Tohti's website on the Uyghur people and were jailed for periods ranging from three to eight years.
Tohti's lawyers, Li Fangping and Liu Xiaoyuan said the students were detained in January and were given a secret trial in the remote province of Xinjian in the west of China.
Six of the students are Uyghurs and one was from the Yi ethnic group, the Global Times reported.
The academic was jailed for life in September after China found him guilty of separatism.
Tohti, who is not an independence activist but an outspoken critic of China’s sometimes brutal crackdown on Uyghurs, denied the charges, and was a member of the Communist Party until his arrest early this year. He has expressed revulsion against violence used by some Uyghur and called for Xinjiang province to remain part of China.
Prominent Uighur academic jailed for life (23 September 2014)