Uyghur communities protest in US, Canada; seek global action against China over 2009 Urumchi killings

Washington/ Ottawa : The officials of the East Turkistan Government in Exile (ETGE) and members of the Uyghur community staged demonstrations in the US and Canada calling for accountability and international action to end what they described as Beijing’s “ongoing genocide” in East Turkistan, also known as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China.

The protests were held on Sunday outside the White House in Washington and Canada’s Alberta Legislature in Edmonton to mark the 17th anniversary of the July 5, 2009, Urumchi Massacre, commemorating the victims of what the ETGE said was “one of the deadliest acts of state repression” carried out by the Chinese authorities in Xinjiang.

The exiled authorities stated that Uyghur communities also held commemorations worldwide, from Japan and Turkey to Norway and the United Kingdom, marking the anniversary as a day of “national mourning and resistance” while urging the governments to confront China’s “occupation and genocide” in Xinjiang.

According to the ETGE, on July 5, 2009, thousands of Uyghurs peacefully marched in Urumchi, demanding justice for Uyghur workers murdered in a toy factory in Shaoguan, China.

“China’s response was bullets, mass arrests, and enforced disappearances. Hundreds were killed, and thousands of Uyghur men and youth were seized from their homes and disappeared,” it stated.

The ETGE alleged that the “Urumchi Massacre was a coordinated campaign of state repression that foreshadowed the genocide now entering its thirteenth year.”

“Millions of Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic peoples have since been imprisoned in concentration camps and prisons, subjected to forced labour, and stripped of their fundamental freedoms. More than one million East Turkistani children have been separated from their families and placed in Chinese state institutions designed to erase their language, faith, and identity,” it added.

Addressing the gathering outside the White House, one day after the US President Donald Trump marked 250 years of American independence and declared, “Long live the cause of independence!” ETGE Foreign Minister Salih Hudayar said America’s own history should compel it to support “East Turkistan’s struggle for independence”.

“America, of all nations, should understand what it means to fight for independence against an empire that says you have no right to exist. A Chinese empire allowed to get away with genocide will not stop at our borders. To confront China’s imperial expansion, the free world must support the independence of the nations it holds captive. Our independence and your security are one and the same cause,” said Hudayar.

In Edmonton, Alberta, ETGE Prime Minister Abdulahat Nur, who also serves as President of the Alberta Uyghur Cultural Society, led a parallel demonstration.

“Canada must move beyond symbolic statements and formally recognise East Turkistan as an occupied country. We call on Ottawa to stand with our people’s inalienable right to decolonisation and independence,” said Nur.

The ETGE called on the governments of US, Canada, and the international community to address the root cause of the suffering of the people in Xinjiang by recognising the region as an “occupied country” under international law and affirming its people’s inherent right to self-determination and independence.

It also urged the global community to reject China’s recently implemented “Ethnic Unity Law”, hold the Chinese authorities accountable under international law, and support the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the “Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples with respect to East Turkistan”.

IANS