Date: June 29, 2023

Time: 10:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. EDT

Watch live on UHRP’s Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube pages

Join the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) to discuss the Chinese government’s religious persecution of Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples in East Turkistan, as well as Hui and other religious believers and practitioners in China. The event will be held in the Chinese language.

Panellists:

Dr. Erkin Ekrem is an Associate Professor at the Department of History, Hacettepe University, Turkey. From 1981 to 1986, he studied at Xinjiang College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (which has been merged into Xinjiang Medical University). From 1986 to 1991, he worked in the Orthopedics Department of Yili District People’s Hospital. From 1995 to 2003, he received a doctorate degree. Since 1999, he has worked as an expert on Central and East Asia in think tanks such as ASAM and SDE in Turkey. He has also been involved in the East Turkestan Freedom Movement since 1983, and established the East Turkestan Student Federation in 1993. He was elected vice-president of the 6th and 7th World Uyghur Congress in 2017 and 2021, in charge of political and strategic affairs.

Mr. Ma Ju is a Hui Muslim scholar, advocate and activist. He studied in Damascus, Syria in 1991, Arabic in Amman, Jordan, and history of religion in Tunisia in 1994. He now has his own media platform where he discusses religious persecution and repression in China.

Pastor Zheng Leguo is a native of Yueqing, Wenzhou, Zhejiang. He received a master’s degree in Theology from Trinity Theology College in 2008, and led a thousand-person church in Baixiang Christian Church in Yueqing City, Wenzhou for eight years. He has long been concerned about the relationship between the state and church in China, situational theology, and local church history, and theological education. In 2014, he participated in the defense of Wenzhou Sanjiang Cathedral, and focuses on the living plight and religious freedom of the Turkic Uighurs from a Christian perspective.

Moderator:

Ilshat Hassan Kokbore is an activist, writer, and commentator for Radio Free Asia. He is UHRP’s Chinese translator and research consultant, vice chairman of the WUC Executive Committee, and former president of Uyghur American Association.