The U.S. State Department has attacked China for sentencing the Uygur separatist mastermind Ilham Tohti to life in prison, calling him a "moderate scholar."

He may be a scholar, but what he teaches is the right to oppose the Chinese government by any means available. So when Uygur terrorists rammed their jeep into a crowd of people on Tiananmen Square on Oct. 28, 2013, killing two and wounding 40, he called them "heroes" instead of terrorists.

He used Uygur Online to stir up animosity between Chinese (Han) and Uygur people that led directly to the May 22 Urumqi terrorist attacks using two cars without license plates that killed 31 and wounded 94.

The "moderate scholar" openly called for the independence of Xinjiang, spreading the lie that 87 percent of Uygurs wanted independence. Separatism is the crime he is convicted of.

I would like to cite a very similar case to show Washington's double standards: the case of Egyptian Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman. A federal jury convicted the sheik and nine others of conspiracy to bomb the UN, a bridge and two tunnels in New York City with the intent of trying to force the United States to change its Middle East policies.

The ten were convicted of seditious conspiracy, which requires only that a crime be planned, not that it necessarily be attempted, and sentenced to life in prison. The blind sheik is still serving a life sentence at the Butner Medical Center, which is part of the Butner Federal Correctional Institution in Butner, North Carolina.

Both Ilham Tohti and Adbel-Rahman spread subversive anti-government ideas. So why would they be considered differently?

The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

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