Ablikim Abdureyim was sentenced on April 17 in Urumqi, capital of the Muslim Xinjiang region in China’s far west, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Abdureyim’s mother, Rebiya Kadeer, once was one of China’s most prominent businesswomen but became a critic of the communist government’s treatment of Uighurs, Turkic-speaking Muslims in Xinjiang.

She was detained in 1999 and sentenced to eight years in prison, but was allowed to leave for the United States in 2005.

Kadeer denounced the trial process and Abdureyim’s conviction saying that he was not given a lawyer or an opportunity to defend himself in the secret hearing. She said her son was innocent.

The Urumqi court convicted him of spreading secessionist articles over the Internet, instigating the public against the government and writing articles that distorted China’s human rights and ethnic policies, the report said.

Abdureyim’s two brothers were convicted of tax evasion last year. Kadeer said the charges are all false and that her sons are innocent.

China says it is fighting an Islamic separatist movement in Xinjiang, where Uighurs are the dominant ethnic group and refer to the territory as "East Turkestan."