UHRP Calls for Vigilance and Accountability on the 29th Anniversary of the Ghulja Massacre
For immediate release
February 5, 2026, 2:00 p.m. EST
Contact: Omer Kanat, +1 (202) 790-1795
On February 5, 1997, in the city of Ghulja, unarmed Uyghur men and women peacefully took to the streets to protest increasing political, cultural, and religious repression. What began as a grassroots demand for human rights, including an end to discriminatory policies and the suppression of community gatherings like meshrep, was met with a lethal state response. Chinese security forces opened fire on the demonstrators, killing and injuring many, and then rounded up thousands in the following weeks. Hundreds were tortured, tried in unfair proceedings, executed, or disappeared.
Twenty-nine years later, the Ghulja Massacre remains an unresolved incident of state violence against the Uyghur people. The killings on February 5, 1997, were a precursor to the Chinese government’s crimes against humanity and genocide, including mass internment and imprisonment, pervasive surveillance, cultural erasure, forced labor, and coercive population control measures, targeting Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples.
Despite the severity of the crackdown, the Chinese government has neither been held to account for the violence in Ghulja, nor has it offered transparency or remediation for the families of those killed, detained, or disappeared. The failure of the international community three decades ago to confront these crimes emboldened patterns of Chinese government impunity and escalating repression.
The anniversary of the Ghulja Massacre is an act of remembrance for Uyghurs. It is also a reminder that vigilance must be ongoing if the international community is to fulfill its moral and legal obligations. UHRP acknowledges the efforts of concerned governments to confront China on Uyghur human rights; however, a retreat into normalizing political and economic relations with China enables perpetrators and diminishes accountability.
“The Ghulja Massacre was an early warning of state violence against Uyghurs that has never been properly addressed. On this 29th anniversary, I ask the international community to maintain its attention to the ongoing Uyghur genocide. This vigilance is critical in achieving the accountability that generations of Uyghurs have been seeking,” said UHRP Executive Director Omer Kanat.
Mr. Kanat added: “The international community has the tools and obligations to respond through sanctions targeting perpetrators of human rights abuses and enforcement of international conventions against genocide and crimes against humanity.”
Read more:
The Ghulja Massacre of 1997 and the Face of Uyghur Genocide Today, by Zubayra Shamseden, February 2021
Channel 4 UK: China’s Hidden War [exclusive video reporting on the Ghulja Massacre, 1997]
Amnesty International: Gross Violations of Human Rights in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, 1999 (pages 18-25)