Press Release – For immediate release
14 May 2020
Contact: World Uyghur Congress www.uyghurcongress.org
+49 89 5432 1999 or [email protected]

The World Uyghur Congress is greatly encouraged by the passage of the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020 by unanimous decision in the U.S. Senate. The WUC is grateful to all the Senators who passed this important act, which stands as an important statement of intent by the U.S. government to hold the Chinese government accountable for crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and provides the mandate to take meaningful, concrete action to pressure the Chinese government to end the crisis in East Turkistan. We urge the House of Representatives to quickly send the act to the desk of the President of the U.S., to sign this bill into law as an urgent matter of priority.

For three years, Uyghurs around the world have been called for the international community to take concrete measures to stop the Chinese government’s atrocities against the Uyghur people. As the friends and families of the Uyghur diaspora have been rounded up and arbitrarily detained in internment camps or disappeared, Uyghur activists in the U.S. and around the world have urged the international community and national governments to do something to end their suffering.

Once this bill is signed into law, it will constitute the first legislative initiative by a national government to address the Uyghur crisis. The act endorses many concrete measures to put pressure on the Chinese government and hold officials responsible for gross human rights violations to account, including the use of targeted sanctions and regular reporting on the human rights situation in East Turkistan and the harassment of the Uyghur diaspora in the U.S. We urge the U.S. government to swiftly implement the provisions of the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act once it is signed into law.

”In this time of despair for the Uyghur people, the passage of the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act by the Senate gives great hope for all of us. We urge the House of Representatives to act on it rapidly. Once a law, not only will it set a precedent for other countries, but it will especially send a strong signal to the Chinese govt. that their human rights violations against the Uyghurs will no longer be tolerated,” stated WUC President Dolkun Isa.

The WUC hopes the Act stands as an example to governments around the world of the type of proactive and substantive measures necessary to bring an end to the atrocities being committed by the Chinese government in East Turkistan. We must build on the momentum generated by the passage of the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act and call on parliamentarians around the world to pass similar legislative initiatives in their own national contexts. The concern and condemnation of the Chinese government’s treatment of the Uyghur people, expressed by national governments around the world, must be converted into meaningful action, if the situation in East Turkistan is to change.