Outspoken ethnic minority Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti, who was detained at his Beijing home nearly two weeks ago, may have been taken to Xinjiang but his lawyer who traveled to the restive western region of China to inquire from police about his whereabouts returned to the capital without any clues, according to Tohti's wife. "I think my husband may be in Urumqi now," the wife, Guzelnur, told RFA's Uyghur Service referring to Xinjiang's capital. "But neither the Beijing police nor Urumqi police are giving me any information about him." Chinese authorities detained the Central University for Nationalities professor on Jan. 15 but have refused to say where he is being held, accusing him of leading a separatist group that advocates violence to overthrow the Chinese rule in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) - charges which Guzelnur totally refuted. Tohti's Being-based lawyer Li Fangping traveled at the weekend to Urumqi where he believed Tohti is being held but was given the cold shoulder by police, she said. "He was made to wait for eight hours outside the police bureau and then they said they cannot give him any information," Guzelnur said. "One officer told him his boss is busy and there may be some news after the Lunar New Year[this weekend]. Li, who returned to the capital on Sunday night, has not been allowed to see Tohti or register to defend him since he decided to defend the scholar. "It is impossible to communicate with the officials and they are refusing to answer phone calls. It has been exhausting," he told Reuters news agency. Not formally charged yet Tohti has not been formally charged but Chinese authorities on Saturday said that Tohti was being investigated for promoting Xinjiang's independence and abetting separatists. The Bureau of Public Security for Urumqi said in an online statement that Tohti recruited followers through a website he founded to cause trouble, spread separatist thoughts, incite ethnic hatred, and engage in separatist activities. It alleged that the scholar told students that Uyghurs should use violence and oppose the government as China opposed Japanese invaders during the World War II. Guzelnur, who said policemen were still on guard outside her house, dismissed the charges as absurd, saying she was "very angry" with the accusations. "I have no idea, he is only a university lecturer.... All the courses he taught were arranged by the university. How could he say those things[as the Bureau of Public Security has alleged]?" she asked. "I hope the world will understand the true situation as Ilham Tohti and his students have done nothing wrong," she said. "His website has operated in line with the Chinese law." She said that Tohti's elderly mother, who was detained together with Tohti but released a few hours later, was admitted to the hospital when she returned home to Atush city in western Xinjiang in the Kizilsu Kirghiz Autonomous Prefecture. "She's still very sick," said Guzelnur, who resides with her two young sons in Beijing. Hardline stance Uyghur human rights groups have said that Tohti's detention was part of Beijing's broad strategy to drown the voices of the minority Uyghurs and underscored its increasing hardline stance on dissent surrounding Xinjiang, the homeland of China's mostly Muslim ethnic minority Uyghur population and where a series of deadly riots has been reported over the past year. In fresh violence Friday, state media reported that 12 people were killed in explosions and clashes with police but a spokesman for an exiled Uighur advocacy group blamed authorities for the deaths. In February 2013, Tohti was prevented from leaving China to take up a year-long university position in the United States. Tohti also runs the moderate Uyghur Online website to discuss social issues involving Uyghur-Han Chinese relations, in articles published in both Chinese and Uyghur. His overseas-hosted website has not been functioning since he was detained. UPDATE 25/02/2014 - Ilham Tohti's wife, Guzaili Nu'er was formally informed that Tohti was being held in a detention center in Urumqi, Xinjian Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) and accused of separatism and fomenting ethnic hatred through Uighurbiz, the website he founded. He could face life imprisonment or the death penalty if convicted on this charge. UPDATE 26/06/2014 - For the first time since his detention in January, Mr. Tohti has been permitted to meet his lawyer. He revealed that for the first 20 days of his detention, he was held in leg irons and that he was refused food and water for 10 days in March, following an attack on a train station in Kunming which the authorities blamed on a Uyghur group. Mr. Tohti continues to reject the seperatism charges leveled against him. UPDATE 27/08/2014: Mr. Tohti's pre-trial hearing has been set for 7 September 2014. Tohti's lawyer expects the trial to take place behind closed doors, as the charges against him are related to national security. UPDATE: 12/ 05/ 2015 Jailed Uyghur Scholar Denied Visits or Support From Family Authorities in northwestern China's troubled Xinjiang region have denied the relatives of jailed Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti permission to visit him or provide him with clothing and money while he serves his life sentence for "separatism," according to his wife.The 45-year-old former professor at the Central University for Nationalities in Beijing was sentenced to life in prison, along with deprivation of political rights and confiscation of all his assets, following his conviction on a charge of "separatism" by the Urumqi Intermediate People's Court in Xinjiang on Sept. 23 last year. Tohti's Beijing-based wife Guzelnur, who has been left with the care of the couple's young sons, told RFA's Mandarin Service that the scholar's older brother had recently brought him clothing and money at the Urumqi No. 1 Prison where he is serving time in Urumqi, but was told to return home."When his elder brother went to the prison[with his family], they didn't allow them to see him," she said."The prison authorities said they would inform us around the end of June or near July when we could visit my husband, but now it is not even permitted to give him clothes. They said there are special clothes in prison and the prisoners don't wear outside clothing." Guzelnur said that prison authorities also refused to allow her brother-in-law to give Tohti money to use at the prison commissary."The prison refused the money his brother brought, saying there was still money on my husband's card," she said."Tohti's elder brother also went to the prison in March and had planned to give him 2,000 yuan (U.S. $320) but was refused. We are not sure if denying him money is a regulation in Xinjiang or not." Conviction Tohti's conviction sparked a wave of condemnation in China and from the international community, with human rights activists saying he never received the benefit of a fair trial, and that he should never have been tried in the first place for exercising his constitutional right to free expression.Tohti's Uighur online (uighurbiz.net) website included articles critical of China's ruling Communist Party's policies targeting Uyghurs in Xinjiang, including systematic religious controls, the enforcement of Chinese-medium education in schools, and lack of economic opportunity. These criticisms were used by prosecutors in Tohti's case as evidence that he had incited people to separatism and undermined "national unity," lawyers said at the time.He has repeatedly denied the charge of "separatism" and says the cases against him and his students-seven of whom were handed jail terms of between three and eight years in November-are politically motivated.The Xinjiang region, which is home to millions of Turkic-speaking Uyghurs, has seen an upsurge in violence that has left hundreds dead since 2012, and which China has blamed on terrorists and Islamist insurgents seeking to establish an independent state. But rights groups accuse the Chinese authorities of heavy-handed rule in Xinjiang, including violent police raids on Uyghur households, restrictions on Islamic practices, and curbs on the culture and language of the Uyghur people.Chinese president Xi Jinping announced a harsh, one-year anti-terrorism campaign in May, following a bombing in the regional capital Urumqi that killed 31 people and injured 90.Exile Uyghur groups have repeatedly said the root causes of recent violence in Xinjiang lie with China's treatment of peaceful Uyghur dissidents.