5 July 2026
Press Release – For Immediate Release
East Turkistan Government in Exile (ETGE)
East-Turkistan.Net
contact@East-Turkistan.Net
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The East Turkistan Government in-Exile (ETGE) today commemorated the 17th anniversary of the July 5, 2009 Urumchi Massacre, honoring the victims of one of the deadliest acts of state repression committed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in occupied East Turkistan. Demonstrations were held before the White House in Washington, D.C., and the Alberta Legislature in Edmonton, Canada, where ETGE officials and community members called for accountability and international action to end China’s ongoing genocide.
East Turkistani communities also held commemorations worldwide, from Japan and Türkiye to Norway and the United Kingdom, marking the anniversary as a day of national mourning and resistance while urging governments to confront China’s occupation and genocide in East Turkistan.
On July 5, 2009, thousands of Uyghurs peacefully marched in Urumchi demanding justice for Uyghur workers murdered in a toy factory in Shaoguan, China. China’s response was bullets, mass arrests, and enforced disappearances. Hundreds were killed, and thousands of Uyghur men and youth were seized from their homes and disappeared. The ETGE stated that the Urumchi Massacre was a coordinated campaign of state repression that foreshadowed the genocide now entering its thirteenth year.
Millions of Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic peoples have since been imprisoned in concentration camps and prisons, subjected to forced labor, and stripped of their fundamental freedoms. More than one million East Turkistani children have been separated from their families and placed in Chinese state institutions designed to erase their language, faith, and identity.
On July 1, 2026, Beijing’s “Ethnic Unity Law” entered into force, legally entrenching the Chinese Communist Party’s policy of imposing a Chinese national identity, language, and culture on Uyghurs, Tibetans, Mongolians, and other non-Chinese peoples while further institutionalizing the destruction of their distinct identities. The ETGE stated that the law is designed to complete the erasure of entire peoples and demonstrates that years of international statements have failed to halt the genocide.
Speaking before the White House, one day after President Trump marked 250 years of American independence and declared, “Long live the cause of Independence!”, ETGE Foreign Minister Salih Hudayar said America’s own history should compel it to support East Turkistan’s struggle for independence.
“America, of all nations, should understand what it means to fight for independence against an empire that says you have no right to exist,” said Salih Hudayar, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Security of the ETGE and leader of the East Turkistan National Movement. “A Chinese empire allowed to get away with genocide will not stop at our borders. To confront China’s imperial expansion, the free world must support the independence of the nations it holds captive. Our independence and your security are one and the same cause.”
In Edmonton, Alberta, ETGE Prime Minister Abdulahat Nur, who also serves as President of the Alberta Uyghur Cultural Society, led a parallel demonstration.
“Canada must move beyond symbolic statements and formally recognize East Turkistan as an occupied country,” said Abdulahat Nur. “We call on Ottawa to stand with our people’s inalienable right to decolonization and independence.”
The ETGE called on the United States, Canada, and the international community to address the root cause of the East Turkistani people’s suffering by recognizing East Turkistan as an occupied country under international law, affirming its people’s inherent right to self-determination and independence, rejecting China’s “Ethnic Unity Law,” holding the People’s Republic of China accountable under international law, and implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples with respect to East Turkistan.