Press Release – For immediate Release
05 September 2023
Contact: World Uyghur Congress www.uyghurcongress.org
+49 89 5432 1999 or [email protected]

On Tuesday, September 5, the World Uyghur Congress in collaboration with the Chairman MP Peter Heidt (FDP), and the Vice Chairs MP Derya Türk-Nachbaur (SPD), MP Boris Mijatović (The Greens), MP Michael Brand (CDU/CSU), represented by MP Norbert Altenkamp (CDU/CSU), as well as MP Ulrich Lechte (FDP) and MP Stephan Seiter (FDP) launched the Uyghur Parliamentary Group in the German Bundestag. The Parliamentary Group was initiated with a celebration of Uyghur culture and brought together members of the Bundestag and members of the Uyghur diaspora. 

“The Uyghur Parliamentary Group in the German Bundestag is of a special symbolism for the Uyghurs. Since the 1990s, Uyghur activists fleeing increasing repressive measures by the Chinese government have found a new home in Germany. Today, Germany is the centre of the Uyghur exile community and home to the umbrella organisation World Uyghur Congress”, said Dolkun Isa, President of the World Uyghur Congress, at today’s inaugural event.

Since 2014, the Chinese government has been systematically persecuting Uyghurs through its “Strike Hard Campaign,” which prohibits the expression of their cultural and religious beliefs and punishes them with imprisonment in the numerous concentration camps and prisons in East Turkistan. As a result of the Chinese government’s repressive policies, it is estimated that up to 3 million Uyghurs are subjected to torture, sexual and gender-based violence, and forced labor in these camps. The Uyghur people also suffer coercive birth control policies, family separation, mass surveillance, and the destruction of cultural and religious sites. The serious human rights atrocities, can be characterized as genocide or crimes against humanity, according to the scientific service of the Bundestag. 

“We must do everything we can to ensure that the people of Xinjiang can live in freedom,” said Bundestag member and chairman of the parliamentary group, Peter Heidt. 

“The injustice that is being done to the Uyghur minorities cannot go uncommented,” stated Bundestag member and Vice Chair, Derya Türk-Nachbaur.

The global economy is subject to the state-imposed forced labor of the CCP on the Uyghur people. This includes the supply chains of German companies, such as Volkswagen. According to research by the Sheffield Hallam University, several VW suppliers have been implicated in state-imposed forced labor programs. Volkswagen continues to maintain its controversial plant in East Turkistan, in the immediate vicinity of the internment camps.

Vice Chairman of the Parliamentary Group Boris Mijatovic stressed that responsibility for human rights is not divisible and politicians must demand accountability from German companies like VW and the cotton industry. 

The establishment of the parliamentary group is an important contribution to condemn the human rights abuses committed by the Chinese government against the Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples in East Turkistan. It joins a total of 7 worldwide friendship groups that have made an essential contribution to addressing the genocide of the Uyghurs within their national parliaments.

MP Norbert Altenkamp expressed that the parliamentary circle unites the parliamentarians across party lines.