Press Release – For immediate release
15 June 2022
Contact: World Uyghur Congress www.uyghurcongress.org
0049 (0) 89 5432 1999 or [email protected]

The World Uyghur Congress (WUC) commemorates the 34rd anniversary of the 1988 Uyghur student protests in Urumqi. Taking place in a context of numerous democracy protests ocurring around China in the 1980s, ending with the Tiananmen massacre in 1989, the Uyghur student protests were one of the most significant large-scale public expressions of discontent against the Chinese government’s discriminatory policies in East Turkistan.

Already during the years leading up to the 1988 protests, students took to the streets to voice their dissatisfaction with the Chinese authorities’ discriminatory education policies, birth control regulations, the harmful effects of nuclear testing in the Lop Nur region, as well as a lack of genuine autonomy and meaningful representation in government and the labour market.

“As a student in the 1980s, it became painfully clear to me that the education system in East Turkistan was openly discriminating against Uyghur students, reflecting a wider trend in the region of oppressive policies’’ said WUC President Dolkun Isa. “Thousands of Uyghur students courageously raised their voices against these policies. Back then, we understood the significance of this momentum, which would ultimately lead to the ongoing genocide in East Turkistan’’

The Uyghur student protest movement of the 1980s was led by current WUC President, Dolkun Isa, who had earlier established the Scientific and Cultural Association, which worked to visit Uyghur students around East Turkistan to inform them about the disparities in education policies and unequal representation in government and the labour market for Uyghurs. In the aftermath of the 1988 protests, Mr. Isa was expelled from the university and was later forced to flee the country in 1994, ultimately seeking asylum in Germany from where he has continued speaking out on Uyghur human rights.

The demonstrations proved to be a watershed moment in the lives of many Uyghur students who participated in these protests, setting them down the path of human rights advocacy. Much of what the Uyghur students experienced during and after these protests represented the start of a renewed campaign by the Chinese government to gradually erode the very identity of the Uyghur people, ultimately leading to the crimes against humanity and genocide we are witnessing today.

On this important commemorative day for the Uyghur people and the Uyghur human rights movement, the WUC urges the international community to draw lessons from the past and take all necessary steps to end the Chinese government’s atrocity crimes against the Uyghur people. In reminiscence of the spirit of the 1988 protest, world leaders must match their commitments to defend and promote human rights with meaningful actions, and ensure justice for Uyghur victims and accountability for those responsible for the crimes being committed.