The statement below is attributed to the East Turkistan Government in Exile’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Security
The East Turkistan Government in Exile unequivocally condemns the ISIS propaganda detailed in the MEMRI report “Poster By Pro-Islamic State (ISIS) Media Group Reaches Out To Uyghurs, Urges Them To Make East Turkestan An ISIS Province.” This is a deliberate attempt to advance China’s propaganda and objectives by undermining the legitimate national liberation struggle of the people of East Turkistan to restore their independence and sovereignty. Such propaganda directly supports the People’s Republic of China’s false “counterterrorism” pretext, which has been used to justify grave breaches of international law, including genocide, crimes against humanity, mass arbitrary detention, enslavement, and the systematic colonization of our country.
This ISIS propaganda comes at the heels of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin, where China and its partners pledged to “fight terrorism, separatism and extremism.” Its timing aligns with Beijing’s longstanding efforts to exploit such terminology to demonize and delegitimize the East Turkistani people’s lawful struggle for national liberation and the restoration of independence and sovereignty.
The East Turkistan Government in Exile reaffirms that ISIS is a violent, illegitimate, and internationally proscribed terrorist organization whose ideology, objectives, and methods are wholly rejected by the people of East Turkistan. Our struggle has nothing to do with religious fundamentalism, terrorism, separatism, or extremism. It is a lawful anti-colonial national liberation movement, as recognized under Article 1(4) of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, which affirms the legitimacy of resistance by peoples under colonial domination, foreign occupation, and racist regimes, in accordance with international law.
The people of East Turkistan categorically reject any proposal to become a “province” of any entity, whether religious, political, or otherwise. Our sole objective is the restoration of the independent East Turkistan Republic, the complete liberation of all of East Turkistan, the restoration of full sovereignty, and the protection of our people. We call upon the international community to reject and oppose all false narratives that enable China’s colonial domination, occupation, and genocide in Occupied East Turkistan, and to take concrete measures to end these crimes and support the East Turkistani people in their lawful exercise of the right to self-determination, decolonization, and the restoration of sovereignty.
— Salih Hudayar, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Security, East Turkistan Government in Exile