US: Uyghur rights activists organize protest against China's atrocities in Xinjiang

New York [US], July 28 : The East Turkistan Government in Exile, the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement, and the Free Kazakhs Organization organized a demonstration at the United Nations headquarters on Tuesday to highlight China's atrocities against the Uyghur community in East Turkistan.
The protesters demanded the UN to release its report on China's ongoing genocide against Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples, according to the statement released by East Turkistan Government in Exile.
This protest came after the reports came that China was pressuring the UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet to bury a highly anticipated report on China's atrocities against Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples in East Turkistan.
"We call on the UN and its member states to not allow China to manipulate the UN system," said Prime Minister Salih Hudayar of the East Turkistan Government in Exile in a statement in front of the UN Headquarters in New York.
"We demand that the UN stop ignoring China's ongoing genocide in East Turkistan, and we demand that the UN releases its report on China's ongoing genocide in East Turkistan immediately," he added.
According to the statement, the Chinese government had started its whole campaign of genocide targeting Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic peoples following Xi Jinping's visit to East Turkistan in May 2014.
Millions of ethnic Turkic people were sent to concentration camps, prisons, and slave labor camps and subjected to torture, indoctrination, rape, organ harvesting, forced sterilization, and even extrajudicial killings. This campaign of genocide continues at this very moment.
According to the statement, the UN had primarily ignored China's 21st-century Holocaust-like genocide.
"The lack of action by the UN Human Rights Council, the UN General Assembly, and the UN Security Council have enabled the fascist Chinese government to carry out genocide against Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and other Turkic peoples with impunity for the past eight years," Haider Jan, the Community Outreach Coordinator of the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement said.
"The United Nations and its member states must act against China's ongoing genocide and uphold their commitments under the UN Genocide Convention and the UN Charter," he added.
Tursunay Ziyawudun, a female Uyghur concentration camp survivor living in the United States who attended the demonstration today, warned that "time is running out for the Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples in East Turkistan." She stated that "the UN General Assembly should also adopt a resolution to recognize and act to China's ongoing genocide of Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic peoples in East Turkistan before it is too late."
The East Turkistan Government in Exile again calls on the international community to uphold its commitments under the UN Genocide Convention by taking meaningful action, including humanitarian intervention if necessary, to end China's ongoing campaign of genocide in East Turkistan.
The East Turkistan Government in Exile again reiterates that restoring East Turkistan's rightful independence is the only solution to ensure the freedoms, human rights, and very existence of Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples.
The Uyghurs are a predominantly Muslim minority Turkic ethnic group, whose origins can be traced to Central and East Asia.
Their native region is considered to be the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China.
Xinjiang is technically an autonomous region within China. The Uyghurs are Muslim, they don't speak Mandarin as their native language, and have an ethnicity and culture that is different from that of mainland China.
Over the past few decades, as economic prosperity has come to Xinjiang, it has brought with it in large numbers the majority of Han Chinese, who have cornered the better jobs, and left the Uyghurs feeling their livelihoods and identity were under threat.
This led to sporadic violence, in 2009 culminating in a riot that killed 200 people, mostly Han Chinese, in the region's capital Urumqi.
Chinese authorities have been accused of imposing forced labour, systematic forced birth control and torture, and separating children from incarcerated parents.
China has been forcibly mass sterilising Uyghur women to suppress the population, separating children from their families, and attempting to break the cultural traditions of the group. However, China denies all allegations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang.