PRESS RELEASE – For Immediate Release
East Turkistan Government in Exile (ETGE)
East-Turkistan.Net
contact@East-Turkistan.Net
30 April 2025
Oslo, Norway – On April 29, 2025, Dr. Sayragul Sauytbay, Vice President of the East Turkistan Government in Exile (ETGE), delivered the opening address at the Ethical Trade Conference 2025, Norway’s most prominent platform for ethical and sustainable trade. Organized by Ethical Trade Norway and held at Dansens Hus in Oslo under the theme “Make Sustainability Great Again!”, the event marked the organization’s 25th anniversary and brought together over 300 participants from business, labor, government, and civil society.
Dr. Sauytbay, an ethnic Kazakh from East Turkistan and a key witness of China’s concentration camps, gave an urgent testimony on the ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity committed by the Chinese government against Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic peoples. Drawing on her own experience as an educator forced to work in Chinese concentration camps, she described widespread internment, torture, forced labor, and indoctrination.
She highlighted that nearly one million Uyghur, Kazakh, and other Turkic children have been forcibly separated from their families and placed into Chinese state-run boarding schools and orphanages, where they are subjected to political indoctrination aimed at erasing their ethnic and religious identities.
Calling for urgent and decisive action, Dr. Sauytbay stated:
“The Norwegian government and Norwegian businesses must urgently and unequivocally reassess their ties with China, to prevent themselves from becoming complicit in the genocide, crimes against humanity, and mass enslavement of millions in East Turkistan through forced labor.”
She warned that without full transparency and ethical due diligence, continued political and economic relations with China risk making Norway’s government and Norwegian companies morally and legally complicit in the Chinese state’s atrocities.
Dr. Sauytbay also emphasized that China’s atrocities in Occupied East Turkistan are part of a broader imperial strategy. She stated that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a central instrument of China’s campaign to achieve global domination, allowing the Chinese Communist Party to expand its authoritarian influence under the guise of development and trade.
While she acknowledged the efforts of Ethical Trade Norway and several Norwegian companies to strengthen corporate accountability under the Transparency Act, she stressed that far more needs to be done to eliminate complicity in systems built on genocide and forced labor.
The East Turkistan Government in Exile renews its call for Norway and the international community to recognize and condemn the genocide and mass enslavement of the East Turkistani people perpetrated by the Chinese state, impose targeted sanctions on those responsible, and support the East Turkistani people’s fundamental right to freedom, dignity, and national self-determination.