The Uighurs are a Muslim community in China, where even minor expressions of faith like wearing a headscarf or having a long beard are not allowed. Human rights observers say the Chinese government is keeping hundreds of thousands of Uighurs in so-called "re-education camps". But Beijing says the camps are "job training centers". Some members of the minority group have managed to flee for Turkey.
A group of independent Chinese students calls on governments and universities to act, after threats to ethnic minority activists outside China.
US Embassy in Ankara voices support for Uighurs following Turkey’s call on China to close detention camps
Long-standing repression of the Uyghur culture has reached stunning new lows. What happened to “Never again”?
The House Speaker says the US can’t hesitate to ‘call out’ China due to commercial interests.
Panelists raise awareness on severe persecution and genocide of Uighur Muslim population in China
A court in Kazakhstan has found the leader of a group that has raised concerns over problems faced by ethnic Kazakhs in China guilty of illegally leading an unregistered organization.
While the international community debates the authenticity of a video of Uyghur musician Abdurehim Heyit, an exiled Uyghur in Finland kicks off a new online campaign demanding Beijing to release more evidence of the millions of others who are reportedly detained in Xinjiang’s re-education camps.
As stories of ill treatment and torture in China's “re-education camps” in the western Xinjiang province continue to circulate, Uyghur communities outside of China are demanding that Beijing release information about their missing relatives and friends.
Ankara Should Lead Efforts for Xinjiang UN Fact-Finding Mission
Bibliography of select news reports & academic works
Compiled by Professor Magnus Fiskesjö
Persecution of teachers, scholars and artists constitutes an attempt to erase Uyghur culture. 338 Uyghur intellectuals interned, imprisoned or forcibly disappeared since April 2017, including 21 staff mebers of Xinjiang University. International scholarly exchange with China cannot be justified until they are released.
The Chinese government has been demolishing Uyghur neighborhoods across East Turkestan, for more than a decade. This has resulted in the loss of physical structures, including Uyghur homes, shops, and religious sites. Uyghurs have been forcibly relocated to heavily monitored apartment blocks.
Religious expression is one of the primary reasons the government is sending people to the expanding network of internment camps across East Turkestan (aka Xinjiang). There are reports of people being sent to the camps for having attended a wedding or funeral where a religious passage was read.
The massive scale and sudden establishment of the concentration camp system in East Turkestan is unprecedented. According to US government estimates, there are a minimum of 800,000 and possibly over 2 million people currently detained. This is up to 20 percent of the Uyghur population.
Chinese government officials have emphasized Mandarin language ability as a marker of modernity and, more recently, a necessity in the fight against “terrorism.”
The Chinese Communist Party poses a fundamental threat to civilized values and a rules-based international order. The Party’s massive crackdown in 2018 is breathtaking, encompassing independent intellectuals, civil society, and religious believers of all kinds, including Christians, Falun Gong practitioners, Tibetan Buddhists, Chinese Buddhists, and Hui and Turkic Muslims across the length and breadth of China.