In October 2018, Malaysia released 11 Uyghur refugees to Turkey, after dropping immigration-related charges. This welcome decision marked the end of an arduous journey to freedom for the men. It also demonstrated Malaysia’s leadership in standing up for the rule of law, in the face of interference from China, which pressed strongly to have the men returned.
In mid-December, hundreds in this majority-Muslim country rallied outside the Chinese Embassy here to protest China’s treatment of its Muslim minority Uighurs. Similar rallies took place in Bandung, Aceh and Surakarta the same day, all calling on the Indonesian government and President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to speak up on behalf of Uighur religious and human rights.
The government-backed Islamic Association says the religion must be compatible with President Xi Jinping's political thought.
The Chinese government seems to have been caught off-guard by the outpouring of criticism of its massive campaign of repression of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities.
‘Huawei Exposed’: The Epoch Times Hosts Panel Discussion
Two speakers at an Amnesty International Cape May Chapter event, an organization whose members campaign against human rights abuses, described how more than one million Uyghurs are in detention camps.
Uyghur Activists speak up about the Chinese internment camps
Nury Turkel is apologetic on the phone. "I'm so sorry. I will be a little late. Don't shoot me." A friend is driving the US-based Uighur activist from Parramatta in western Sydney to lunch in the city and the traffic is terrible
Monday marks 70 years since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Drafted in the wake of the atrocities of WWII, its 30 articles constitute governments’ explicit pledge to prevent a repetition of the crimes against humanity of the 1930s and 40s.
In the Chinese region of Xinjiang, tens of thousands of ethnic Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities have been detained inside enormous extrajudicial ‘re-education camps’. China claims the region faces a serious threat from Islamist militants and separatists, stirring up tensions between the mostly Muslim Uyghur minority and the ethnic Han majority.
Bibliography of select news reports & academic works
Compiled by Professor Magnus Fiskesjö
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.
A new report from the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) details how 231 intellectuals have been forcibly disappeared, interned in political indoctrination camps, removed from their posts or imprisoned since April 2017.
Remarks at the International Religious Freedom Roundtable
Testimony of UHRP Chairman Nury Turkel, House Foreign Affairs Committee, Asia Subcommittee Hearing: "China's Repression and Internment of Uyghurs: U.S. Policy Responses." September 26, 2018.
Oral Statement of UHRP Chairman Nury Turkel, House Foreign Affairs Committee, Asia Subcommittee Hearing: "China's Repression and Internment of Uyghurs: U.S. Policy Responses." September 26, 2018.
The human rights crisis in East Turkestan (also known as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) requires an urgent international response. The mass internment of Uyghurs in camps across the region is occurring as the Chinese government promotes itself globally as a model of governance and trade through the Belt and Road Initiative.