BEIJING (AP) — A prominent Uyghur scholar specializing in the study of her people’s folklore and traditions has been sentenced to life in prison, according to a U.S.-based foundation that works on human rights cases in China.

Rahile Dawut was convicted on charges of endangering state security in December 2018 in a secret trial, the San Francisco-based Dui Hua Foundation said in a statement Thursday.

“The sentencing of Professor Rahile Dawut to life in prison is a cruel tragedy, a great loss for the Uyghur people, and for all who treasure academic freedom,” John Kamm, executive director of the Dui Hua Foundation, said in a statement.

She disappeared in late 2017 amid a brutal government crackdown aimed at the Uyghurs, a Turkic, predominately Muslim ethnicity native to China’s northwest Xinjiang region.

Dawut was internationally renowned for her work studying sacred Islamic sites and Uyghur cultural practices in Xinjiang and across Central Asia, authoring many articles and books and lecturing as a visiting scholar abroad, including at Cambridge and the University of Pennsylvania.

News of her life sentence shocked Freeman and other academics in Uyghur studies, as Dawut didn’t engage in activities opposing the Chinese government.

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