Issued by the Office of the Prime Minister
Government in Exile of the Republic of East Turkistan

As the world enters the year 2026, I address the people of East Turkistan and the international community on behalf of the East Turkistan Government in Exile. This message is issued as our homeland remains under foreign occupation and our people continue to face genocide, crimes against humanity, and systematic colonization.

With the passing of this year, East Turkistan enters the seventy-sixth year of Chinese occupation and colonial domination, and enters the twelfth year since genocide and crimes against humanity against our people began in May 2014, crimes that have since been formally recognized by multiple governments, parliaments, and international institutions, including the United Nations. These milestones reflect not only the immense suffering of our people, but also the prolonged failure of the international system to prevent, halt, or reverse crimes it has already acknowledged.

The people of East Turkistan are not facing isolated or incidental human rights violations. We are confronting the systematic execution of a colonial project designed to erase a nation. Mass detention, forced assimilation, forced enslavement, family separation, forced sterilizations, forced abortions, physical and cultural destruction, mass organ harvesting, demographic engineering, and pervasive surveillance are not temporary measures. They are the instruments of permanent erasure. The objective is not “stability” or “development.” It is elimination.

The Uyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic peoples of East Turkistan are being targeted for who they are: the native peoples and rightful inhabitants of East Turkistan. Our faith, language, culture, history, and identity are treated as threats to be eliminated. This is an intentional campaign to erase a people from their own homeland.

Yet East Turkistan endures.

East Turkistan remains a nation under occupation, and the people of East Turkistan remain a people with rights under international law. The campaign being carried out against us has not altered that reality. Our demand to live freely in our own homeland is not a position or an aspiration. It is a right that continues to be denied through force. Our struggle exists because that denial persists.

The East Turkistan Government in Exile addresses the United Nations directly. For more than a decade, the United Nations has possessed credible and overwhelming evidence of genocide and crimes against humanity in East Turkistan. Reports have been issued, findings acknowledged, and concerns expressed. Yet recognition has not been matched by protection, and documentation has not led to deterrence. This failure has allowed crimes to continue unchecked and has gravely damaged the credibility of the international system. In 2026, the United Nations must correct this failure by treating the situation in East Turkistan not as a peripheral human rights issue, but as an urgent matter of genocide, occupation, and decolonization, requiring sustained and concrete institutional action.

I further call upon the United Nations and its member states to formally raise and address the national question of East Turkistan, including our people’s right to decolonization and national self-determination, through the General Assembly, the Human Rights Council, relevant treaty bodies, and all appropriate United Nations mechanisms. Avoiding the political dimensions of this crisis has not reduced suffering. It has entrenched it.

I call on states that claim commitment to international justice to actively support accountability efforts, including cases and submissions related to East Turkistan before the International Criminal Court and other credible judicial mechanisms. Accountability must move from principle to practice. Perpetrators of genocide and crimes against humanity must face justice, regardless of political power.

I address Muslim-majority states and Islamic institutions, including the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. The persecution of the people of East Turkistan constitutes one of the most severe and systematic campaigns carried out against a Muslim people in recorded history. Silence, acquiescence, or the endorsement of false narratives in exchange for political or economic favor represents a failure of both moral and religious responsibility. In 2026, these states and institutions must openly and consistently raise the colonization, genocide, and occupation of the Muslim nation of East Turkistan in international forums, including the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the United Nations, and other multilateral institutions, and align their actions with the Islamic values they claim to uphold.

I address Turkic states and Turkic institutions bound to us by shared blood, language, history, and origin. Shared identity carries responsibility. The national question of East Turkistan, the ongoing genocide against our people, and the necessity of decolonization must be addressed honestly and substantively within Turkic regional frameworks, including the Organization of Turkic States. Turkic states must also raise this issue consistently through all available international institutions and mechanisms. Symbolic references to brotherhood, kinship, and solidarity without political action are no longer sufficient.

I address Western democracies and governments that proclaim commitment to human rights, self-determination, and international law. A decade of statements and resolutions has shown that treating genocide solely as a human rights issue is insufficient. The root cause of the ongoing genocide in East Turkistan is Chinese occupation and colonization. In 2026, these governments must move beyond rhetoric and support the right of the people of East Turkistan to self-determination, decolonization, and independence, consistent with the principles they have applied in other historical contexts.

There is no sustainable path to protecting the freedoms, human rights, or survival of our people without decolonization and the restoration of East Turkistan’s independence. Any framework that leaves our people under the authority of a colonial power that has demonstrated genocidal intent and continues to carry out genocide is not a solution. It is a delay of annihilation.

I address all international organizations, institutions, civil society groups, activists, scholars, journalists, and members of the public. Awareness alone is no longer sufficient. In 2026, meaningful action is required. Legislative, diplomatic, and policy measures must recognize East Turkistan as an occupied country, support our right to decolonization and independence, advance accountability through international justice mechanisms, and reject the use of China’s colonial designation “Xinjiang” in favor of the historically and legally accurate name, East Turkistan.

The threat posed by the Chinese state and the Chinese Communist Party does not end at the borders of our homeland. A system that normalizes genocide, mass internment, colonization, and technological repression in the twenty-first century extends these practices beyond its borders through coercion, surveillance, intimidation, and transnational repression. What is being tested in East Turkistan is not only the survival of one nation, but the future of a rules-based international order and the credibility of the principles upon which it claims to stand.

For the people of East Turkistan, this is not a policy debate, a regional dispute, or a simple human rights issue. It is a question of existence. History will not ask who expressed concern. It will ask who acted when genocide, colonization, occupation, and the wholesale destruction of an entire nation were known, documented, and ongoing.

We enter the new year with clarity and resolve. Our people will endure, and our nation will not surrender its identity, its history, or its rightful claim to freedom and independence. Occupation may impose control, but it cannot erase a people who refuse to disappear.

May God Almighty make this new year the moment when the international community is compelled to act, justice is enforced, genocide and colonization are confronted without delay, and the liberation and restoration of East Turkistan’s independence are achieved.

Mr. Abdulahat Nur
Prime Minister
East Turkistan Government in Exile