Press Release – For Immediate Release
26 July 2022
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NEW YORK – Dozens of East Turkistanis, including concentration camp survivors, held a demonstration in front of the UN Headquarters on Tuesday to protest China’s ongoing genocide in East Turkistan. Demonstrators called on the UN to immediately release its highly anticipated report on China’s ongoing genocide against Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic peoples.
The East Turkistan Government in Exile, the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement, and the Free Kazakhs Organization organized the demonstration following reports that China was pressuring the UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet to bury a highly anticipated report on China’s atrocities against Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples in East Turkistan.
“We call on the UN and its member states to not allow China to manipulate the UN system,” said Prime Minister Salih Hudayar of the East Turkistan Government in Exile in a statement in front of the UN Headquarters in New York. “We demand that the UN stop ignoring China’s ongoing genocide in East Turkistan, and we demand that the UN releases its report on China’s ongoing genocide in East Turkistan immediately,” he added.
The Chinese government initiated a wholesale campaign of genocide targeting Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic peoples following Xi Jinping’s visit to East Turkistan in May 2014. Millions of ethnic Turkic people were sent to concentration camps, prisons, and slave labor camps and subjected to torture, indoctrination, rape, organ harvesting, forced sterilization, and even extrajudicial killings. This campaign of genocide continues at this very moment.
While many governments and parliaments worldwide have condemned and recognized China’s wholesale attack against the Turkic peoples of East Turkistan as genocide and crimes against humanity, the United Nations has primarily ignored China’s 21st-century Holocaust-like genocide.
“The lack of action by the UN Human Rights Council, the UN General Assembly, and the UN Security Council have enabled the fascist Chinese government to carry out genocide against Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and other Turkic peoples with impunity for the past eight years,” said Haider Jan, the Community Outreach Coordinator of the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement. “The United Nations and its member states must act against China’s ongoing genocide and uphold their commitments under the UN Genocide Convention and the UN Charter,” he added.
Tursunay Ziyawudun, a female Uyghur concentration camp survivor living in the United States who attended the demonstration today, warned that “time is running out for the Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples in East Turkistan.” She stated that “the UN General Assembly should also adopt a resolution to recognize and act to China’s ongoing genocide of Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic peoples in East Turkistan before it is too late.”
The East Turkistan Government in Exile again calls on the international community to uphold its commitments under the UN Genocide Convention by taking meaningful action, including humanitarian intervention if necessary, to end China’s ongoing campaign of genocide in East Turkistan. The East Turkistan Government in Exile again reiterates that restoring East Turkistan’s rightful independence is the only solution to ensure the freedoms, human rights, and very existence of Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples.
