Uyghur Muslims held an awake condemning the 74th anniversary of the invasion of East Turkestan by China, which occurred on October 1, 1949. Turkestan communities organized events in a number of countries as a reminder of what their country is going through under Chinese invasion.
In Turkey, the Uyghur community rallied massively in the anniversary of the invasion of their country, on Sunday, in front of the Chinese consulate in Istanbul, and a press conference was held to publicize their country’s suffering.
According to the Uyghur press conference, on October 1, 1949, China entered with its forces the territory of East Turkestan, and started taking over vital cities, such as: Urumqi, Ghulja, and Kashgar. About 150,000 Muslims of East Turkestan were killed during the first years of the invasion by the Chinese.
The statement was read by Hidayetullah Oğuzhan, Head of the International Federation of East Turkestan Organizations. “We are here today on the 74th anniversary of the invasion of East Turkestan, to condemn China, as China continues its policies of genocide and assimilation that are becoming more brutal day by day,” said Oğuzhan.
“74 years ago, on October 1, Communist China announced its founding, and entered and invaded East Turkestan under the pretense of liberating it from nationalist Chinese forces. Then, it wiped out all state institutions in East Turkestan along with the East Turkestan Republic Army. As well as, arresting and killing the intellectuals, the wealthy, and opinion leaders, under the disguise of combating local nationalism. It also changed its name to the “Autonomous Uyghur Xinjiang” in 1955, with this, East Turkestan was officially invaded,” he added.
“After the invasion, China began implementing the ideology of assimilation throughout East Turkestan, whose people were subjected to unprecedented oppression and persecution, and the Uyghurs and other Turkish people were subjected to genocide through direct killing, extrajudicial execution and life imprisonment,” he pointed out.
China also implemented all oppressive and inhumane methods against the people of East Turkestan, including all kinds of psychological and physical torture, organs theft, rape, humiliation, racism, illegal detention, deprivation of religious freedom, confiscation of assets, wealth, and land, forced abortion, sterilization, forced labor, forced deprivation of the Uyghur language, forced communism, and many others. In addition to the arresting and killing of scholars, opinion leaders, intellectuals, academics and the wealthy in East Turkestan, and the destruction of mosques, shrines and other monuments and historical areas in East Turkestan.
The statement pointed out to the so-called kinship project between the Uyghurs and the Chinese in order to sabotage the values of the Uyghur family institution, sending the Chinese to live in the homes of the Uyghurs. In addition to building detention camps for children and forcing them, starting from kindergarten, to stay in those camps, which they called boarding schools. Therefore, depriving the parents of their rights to teach and promote the Uyghur language, culture, and values to their children. It even gave Uyghur children who were killed or detained in Chinese concentration camps to Chinese families.
He explained that China implemented the ideology of assimilation step by step in East Turkestan. Between 1955 and 1965, hundreds of thousands of intellectuals, scholars, and religious leaders were slaughtered in East Turkestan under the pretense of combating local nationalism. Mosques and religious schools, which had continued to teach since the Qarakhanids, were also closed and demolished.
Between 1966 and 1976, during the Cultural Revolution, about one million Turkics were brought under control, and all existing historical material heritage was destroyed and burned, regardless of its value, considering it a remnant of the past. China also changed the demographic and ethnic structure of East Turkestan by transferring millions of Han Chinese settlers, from the interior regions of China to East Turkestan, calling it the reform period; The “Western Document Development Project”. It also ransacked the wealth of East Turkestan and distributed it to the Chinese inland provinces. As well as, banning the use of the Uyghur language as an educational method in schools under the name “bilingual education,” which it proposed in 2004.
By 2017, the Uyghur language was banned even in primary schools. By the time Xi Jinping became the Chinese president in 2013, brutal domination over East Turkestan started, under the pretense of “fighting religious extremism,” and millions of people were arrested in “concentration camps,” which China began building in 2014 throughout East Turkestan.
In their statement, the Uyghurs called on people from all over the world to take action in order to stop the atrocities committed against the people of East Turkestan. As well as, calling on the Islamic world, whether Muslims or people from other religions to take action against Chinese violations.
They concluded their statement, by stating their most prominent demands:
- We demand that all countries must recognize East Turkestan as part of the territories invaded by China, and to support our struggle for independence, that we’re waging legitimately.
- We call on the United Nations, the European Union, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the Organization of Turkic States, and all other countries to take measures to immediately abandon China’s racist stand, the restrictions imposed on human rights and freedom of belief, and the practice of the “modern Nazi torture camp” under the pretense of “terrorism and religious extremism,” and to stop the ongoing genocide in East Turkestan.
- We call on the UN General Assembly and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to appoint a special representative for East Turkestan, send an independent monitoring team and hold a negotiation session.
- We call on governments and international organizations to exert diplomatic pressure on China to find solutions to human rights violations and cultural oppression in East Turkestan.
- We encourage all consumers and businesses around the world to be aware of supply chains that may contain Uyghur forced labor in East Turkestan, and to take measures to ensure that the source of the products is ethical.
