Genocide and crimes: Uyghur activists call for action against China

Washington: The Uyghur rights leaders called for immediate global action to address the ongoing genocide and crimes done by China against the Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic ethnic groups in the East Turkistan region.

This comes after the US State Department released the 2023 Human Rights Report on April 22.

“The East Turkistan Government in Exile (ETGE) is urgently calling for immediate and substantial global action to address the genocide and crimes against humanity being perpetrated by China against Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic ethnic groups in East Turkistan,” the ETGE said in a statement.

US State Secretary Antony Blinken, as well as a specific section on China in the report, stated that China’s atrocities in East Turkistan (which Beijing calls “Xinjiang”) constitute an ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity.

“These atrocities include mass internment, forced labour, and the forced assimilation of nearly one million Turkic children into Chinese state-run facilities,” the statement added.

In May 2014, the Chinese government launched a “People’s War” on Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples in East Turkistan under the guise of combating “extremism, separatism, and terrorism.”

Later, by 2016, “this so-called “People’s War” had escalated into a comprehensive campaign of genocide and crimes against humanity due to a lack of international response and condemnation,” according to the statement.

Notably, the key aspects of China’s campaign of genocide and crimes against humanity include the mass internment of millions of Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic peoples in concentration camps, which are increasingly being converted into official prisons; the forced sterilisation of hundreds of thousands of Uyghur and other Turkic women; and the enslavement of millions more through forced labour.

Moreover, other aspects include coerced marriages of Turkic women to Chinese men, widespread destruction of thousands of cultural and religious sites, suppression of religious practices, prohibition of native Turkic languages in education, and forced separation and assimilation of nearly a million Uyghur and other Turkic children in state-run facilities, according to the statement. (IANS)

Also Read: Uyghur activists rally in Istanbul against Chinese oppression (sentinelassam.com)

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