Chinese police have detained the country’s most high-profile Uighur academic, an outspoken critic of official policies in the restive far-western region of Xinjiang, on suspicion of “breaking the law”, the government said yesterday.

Wednesday’s detention is the latest indication of the government’s increasing hardline stance on dissent surrounding Xinjiang, where a series of violent riots in the past year have killed at least 91 people, rights activists say.

Xinjiang is home to the Muslim Uighur people who speak a Turkic language. Many resent what they see as oppressive treatment by the government, though Beijing says they are granted wide religious, cultural and linguistic freedoms.

Police in Beijing seized Ilham Tohti, a prominent Uighur economist who has championed the rights of the Uighur community in Xinjiang, at his home and his whereabouts were unknown, his wife and close friend said yesterday.

Tohti has challenged the government’s version of several incidents involving Uighurs, including what Beijing says is its first major suicide attack involving two men from Xinjiang in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, by pointing out inconsistencies in the official accounts, said Nicholas Bequelin, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch.

“Ilham is suspected of breaking the law,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a daily news briefing.

“The public security organs have detained him in accordance with the law. The relevant departments will now deal with him in accordance with the law.” (Reuters)