A day before Tohti's 50th birthday on Friday, the message came from EU Parliament President David Sassoli.

-He has done much to improve the understanding between Uyghurs and Han Chinese and has been imprisoned for life. The European Parliament fully supports his work and wants Chinese authorities to release him immediately, Sassoli told the MPs in Strasbourg.

Economist Tohti has long fought for the Uighur people's rights in China, where five years ago he was sentenced to life imprisonment for "separatism". The people group is massively monitored in China and about one million people, preferably Uighurs, are estimated to be imprisoned in the western Xinjiang province without trials.

Double priced

The Sakharov Prize has existed since 1988 and is named after the Soviet physicist and human rights activist Andrei Sacharov, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975.

Earlier this autumn Tohti also received the Council of Europe's finest human rights award, the Vaclav Havel Prize, and was also among the most mentioned for the Nobel Peace Prize this year.

The fact that Tohti is being praised means that the Sakharov Prize has now gone to imprisoned activists for two consecutive years. Last year, Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov, who then served a 20-year prison sentence in Russia, was praised for having planned a terrorist offense.

50 000 euros

However, Sentsov was released in September in connection with a prisoner exchange and is expected to reach the European Parliament later this fall to receive last year's award.

The prize amount is just over half a million SEK, 50,000 euros, which is traditionally donated to some kind of charitable purpose.