PRESS RELEASE – For Immediate Release
East Turkistan Government in Exile (ETGE)
East-Turkistan.Net
contact@East-Turkistan.Net
27 May 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The East Turkistan Government in Exile (ETGE) strongly condemns the participation of Mr. Francesco Frangialli, Honorary Secretary-General of the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), in the launch of China’s “Nihao! China” 2025 tourism promotion campaign held on May 24 in Turpan, East Turkistan. Mr. Frangialli delivered a keynote speech during the state-run event, which seeks to attract global tourism to UNESCO sites in China as well as in Occupied East Turkistan, where the Chinese government is actively committing genocide and crimes against humanity.
The ETGE views this participation as a deeply irresponsible and dangerous act of complicity by a UN-affiliated figure. His involvement provides a veneer of international legitimacy to a Chinese campaign designed not only to obscure its ongoing atrocities but to repackage occupied East Turkistan as a tourism destination — while native Uyghur and other Turkic peoples are subjected to mass internment, forced sterilization, forced labor, and the wholesale erasure of their cultural and religious identity.
President of the East Turkistan Government in Exile, Dr. Mamtimin Ala, stated, “The presence of a United Nations representative at a Chinese propaganda event held in the heart of an ongoing genocide is more than offensive — it is a betrayal. It reflects the United Nations’ disturbing willingness to ignore its own findings and to prioritize diplomatic theater over human lives.”
China’s campaign in East Turkistan has led to the internment of millions of Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic peoples in concentration camps, the destruction of thousands of mosques and cultural sites, and the widespread use of forced labor tied to global supply chains. Over a million Uyghur and other Turkic children have been separated from families and subjected to ideological indoctrination, while hundreds of thousands of Uyghur and other Turkic women have been sterilized as part of China’s ongoing campaign of genocide in East Turkistan. In August 2022, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) concluded in an official report that these actions may amount to crimes against humanity.
Despite this acknowledgment, the United Nations as a whole — including its General Assembly, Security Council, Human Rights Council, and Secretary-General — has taken no meaningful action to hold the Chinese government accountable.
“This is not diplomacy — it is collaboration with a genocidal colonial regime,” said Salih Hudayar, Foreign Minister of the East Turkistan Government in Exile. “It is outrageous that three years after the UN’s own human rights office exposed what is happening in East Turkistan, its agencies and representatives continue to enable the very government committing these atrocities. We demand accountability, not appeasement.”
The East Turkistan Government in Exile demands that the UN World Tourism Organization immediately issue a public apology and distance itself from Mr. Frangialli’s participation. It further calls on the United Nations system to uphold its mandate, formally recognize the genocide in East Turkistan, and take immediate action to ensure justice for the victims, including calling on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to launch an immediate investigation and hold Chinese leaders accountable for the ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity.
The people of East Turkistan will not be erased, nor will their suffering be hidden beneath the veneer of tourism. We reject the exploitation of our occupied homeland as a stage for Chinese propaganda and demand that the international community treat the Uyghur genocide with the urgency and seriousness it warrants.