A jailed scholar from Chinainfo-icon's mostly-Musliminfo-icon Uyghur minority was awarded the Martin Ennals Award for human rightsinfo-icon defenders on Tuesday, a move swiftly condemned by Beijing.

Ilham Tohti has been an outspoken critic of Beijing's policies towards the Uyghur minority in their home region Xinjiang in western China, which has seen a security crackdown in recent years prompted by clashes that have killed hundreds.

In 2014, he was sentenced to life in prison for "separatism" over a website he ran that was often critical of China's official ethnic policies.

"The real shame of this situation is that by eliminating the moderate voice of Ilham Tohti the Chinese government is in fact laying the groundwork for the very extremism it says it wants to prevent," Martin Ennals Foundation chairman Dick Oosting said in a statement.

The foundation is named after the first secretary general of Amnesty Internationalinfo-icon and the prize is judged by the London-based rights group, along with Human Rights Watch and other leading organisations.

China's foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang slammed the decision, saying "there is clear evidence of IIham Tohti's wrongdoings."

"Ilham Tohti used to be a university professor in China. In his class, he hailed suspects who launched terrorist attacks as 'heroes'," Geng said in a statement.

"He has been convicted by Chinese justice for separatism. His case has nothing to do with human rights."