Happy holidays from the Campaign for Uyghurs!

We wish you a Merry Christmas and cheerful, prosperous New Year! At the same time, we would like to share the Campaign for Uyghurs’ gratitude and appreciation for the world community for speaking out, standing by and supporting the Uyghur people. The spirit of the season is to be jubilant, gracious, charitable, kind, and compassionate.

Despite the fact that we have been living in the 21st Century information era with smartphones on almost everyone’s hands, the Uyghur diaspora is unable to call or text their families and loved ones back home to wish them a Happy New Year. They cannot communicate with their families nor can they know the whereabouts of their loved ones.

Recent reports and news detailing the Chinese government’s inhuman treatment of Uyghurs revealed how the Communist Party has been orchestrating the “mass rape” of Uyghur women in a sinister program designed to “promote ethnic unity”. Uyghur women are forced to share a bed with and even marry Han Chinese who are appointed by the Communist Party. Radio Free Asia has reported about how Uyghur children whose parents are held in camps are regularly sent to orphanages that are seriously overcrowded, with sources calling the conditions “terrible” and describing children “locked up like farm animals in a shed” And some dying or suffering severe injuries while their parents are detained and they lack adequate care.

Beijing’s human rights abuses are not only staying in East Turkistan but its effecting entire Uyghur diaspora. Many young Uyghur students abroad are unable to receive tuition fees sent by their parents back in East Turkistan because the Chinese Government stopped money transfers or simply detained them in camps.

Although there is some international condemnation, strong actions against China’s brutality, and we are very pleased with the legislation approved by the U.S. Senate and House, we have a lot of work to do as the situation in East Turkistan has not been improved. The largest mass arbitrary detention since the second world war – with estimates of about 3 million individuals possibly more, held against their will in concentration camps. At the same time, the region itself has been transformed into a surveillance state not seen anywhere else on Earth.

Beijing has constantly shifted the narrative on the camps, indicating that greater scrutiny has had a real effect. From complete denial to a hastily organized defense to recently claiming that “trainees” in the camps had all “graduated”, got jobs, and living in prosperity, shows that China has been forced to develop its counter-narrative. According to a recent Washington Post article, “many detainees are being sent to factories no freer than the camps, in some cases located on the campgrounds or adjacent to them. If true, the creation of a chain gang of Uighur workers is yet another sickening dimension to one of the world’s most serious human rights crises.” In other words, now we are witnessing how millions of Uyghurs are also subject to modern-day slavery in East Turkistan.

As crazy as that world is to fathom, the rest of the world’s reaction is actually more shocking! The world is not only turning a blind eye to technologically-enabled mass violations of rights, but it is actively investing in China’s Communist Party-controlled companies and even inviting those very companies to build the 5G infrastructure. Rushan Abbas, the Executive Director of Campaign for Uyghurs said, “I don’t understand how the world is rewarding China by inviting its mass surveillance tech companies to build their own next-generation telecommunications backbone. Knowing China’s crimes and to continue doing business as usual, is enabling its crimes against humanity and complicity with China’s revamped genocide of the Uyghurs. During the holidays and on forward, we all should remember that ‘Made in China’ is made with forced labor!”

The Uyghurs are not only unable to enjoy their basic human rights in East Turkistan but struggling for survival, and those living abroad are unable to enjoy their freedom knowing that their loved ones are in camps or they have no news of their safety. The Campaign for Uyghurs urges the international community to stand strong against China’s brutalities and call for the immediate release of the mass arbitrary detention of Uyghurs.

The Xinjiang Papers reveal an unprecedented, inside view of the CCP’s racially targeted and ruthless attitude towards the Uyghurs and confirm those vicious policies were conceived, and orchestrated, by top-level officials in the Chinese government. Xi Jinping’s ability to conceal and mislead the international community about the nature of the camps continues to be eroded, day by day. The Xinjiang Papers make clear in official texts many of the features that journalists and researchers have discovered over the past two years. It is time to act bravely and to stop the under minding the rule of law and make such evil practice as an international norm. We are all responsible for what happens next. With a joint action, what the Uyghurs are facing today, won’t to be the future of the world.