Today, we mark the 15th anniversary of one of the darkest chapters in our history—the 2009 Urumchi Massacre. On June 26, 2009, a heinous attack occurred in Shaoguan, Guangdong province, where dozens of Uyghurs, who were forcibly transferred from East Turkistan to Chinese provinces for forced labor, were killed, and hundreds more injured by a large Chinese mob at a toy factory. This barbaric act ignited a flame of outrage and sorrow among the Uyghur community, leading to peaceful protests across East Turkistan, particularly in Urumchi, on July 5, 2009.
However, the Chinese occupation regime responded to these peaceful demands for justice with unprecedented brutality. On that fateful day, hundreds, if not thousands, of Uyghurs were massacred, and tens of thousands were arrested across East Turkistan. Since then, the Chinese occupation forces have implemented an even more oppressive, surveillance-driven police state, laying the groundwork for their ongoing campaign of genocide.
In May 2014, the Chinese government launched its so-called “People’s War” in East Turkistan, marking the beginning of an even more aggressive and systematic genocide. Millions of Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic peoples have been subjected to mass internment in concentration camps and prisons, where they endure forced medication, indoctrination, torture, rape, organ harvesting, and executions. Many are enslaved in factories and forced labor camps under abhorrent conditions.
The scope of this genocide is staggering. Between 2016 and 2017, the Chinese regime forcibly collected DNA, voice prints, and retina scans from over 36 million individuals aged 12 to 65. Hundreds of thousands of women have been forcibly sterilized, and nearly a million children have been separated from their families and placed in state-run facilities to be raised as “loyal Chinese citizens.” Over 16,000 mosques and other religious and cultural sites have been destroyed in an attempt to erase our cultural heritage.
The Chinese government’s own white paper from 2020 admitted to the mass internment of Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples, highlighting that between 2014 and 2019, they sent 1.29 million Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples per year—roughly 7.8 million people in total—for so-called “vocational training” and “re-education,” a sick, twisted euphemism used to describe their concentration camps.
Since January 2021, the U.S. government and numerous Western parliaments have officially designated China’s atrocities in East Turkistan as genocide and crimes against humanity. In August 2022, the UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner published a report condemning China’s atrocities as crimes against humanity. While these recognitions are significant, they are not enough. The genocide of the Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples continues unabated as China acts with impunity. China still continues to mass internment millions of Uyghurs and there Turkic peoples in prisons and concentration camps.
Despite East Turkistan’s population making up barely 2% of the population of the areas under the control of the People’s Republic of China, Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples make up over 30% of those officially imprisoned by the PRC. Even in 2024, millions of Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples remain interned in prisons and concentration camps, with millions more enslaved in slave labor factories throughout occupied East Turkistan and across Chinese provinces in China.
The international community has largely failed to address the root causes of the Urumchi Massacre and the ongoing genocide: Chinese colonization and occupation of East Turkistan. Prior to its invasion by the People’s Republic of China on October 12, 1949, and the subsequent overthrow of the independent East Turkistan Republic on December 22, 1949, East Turkistan was a sovereign and independent nation.
We demand that the international community, especially democratic governments, to uphold their treaty obligations to prevent and punish the crime of genocide. We demand them to uphold their commitments to the right to self-determination, by recognizing East Turkistan as an occupied country and to support East Turkistan’s efforts to obtain justice through the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice, and other international institutions. We demand the international community uphold its commitments to end colonialism and act to end Chinese colonialism, supporting the decolonization of East Turkistan.
We honor and remember the countless martyrs of the Urumchi Massacre and the countless East Turkistanis who continue to be martyred daily as China continues its campaign of genocide, colonization, and occupation. Restoring East Turkistan’s independence is the only way to ensure the freedoms, human rights, and very existence of the Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples in East Turkistan. The bloodshed, suffering, decades long Chinese campaign of occupation, colonization, and genocide in East Turkistan must end. It is time for the world to stand with East Turkistan and uphold the principles of justice, freedom, and human dignity.
Abdurehim Gheni Uyghur
2024.07.04