Press Release – For Immediate Release
10 January 2023
Contact: World Uyghur Congress www.uyghurcongress.org
0049 (0) 89 5432 1999 or [email protected]

The World Uyghur Congress (WUC) strongly condemns the World Muslim Communities Council (WMCC) visit to East Turkistan and its support of the Chinese government’s crimes against humanity and genocide against the Uyghur people. On 8-9 January, a WMCC delegation consisting of more than 30 Islamic figures and scholars from 14 countries participated in a Chinese government-organised propaganda visit to East Turkistan.

“It is outrageous that the WMCC has participated in this propaganda visit and is now echoing the Chinese government’s narrative”, WUC President Dolkun Isa said. “The WMCC is betraying millions of their Muslim brothers and sisters who have been suffering at the hands of the Chinese government, and is acting in direct contradiction of its own Basic Charter”.

According to Chinese state media the Global Times, the delegation was welcomed by Xinjiang Party Chief Ma Xingrui on Monday, and further attended an exhibition “on the fight against terrorism and extremism”. In a statement following the visit, WMCC Chairman Ali Rashid Abudula Ali Alnuaimi congratulated the Chinese government on “the completion of the counter-terrorism plan in Xinjiang” and praised “the interest and determination of the Chinese leadership to serve all people in the region”.

The WUC firmly rejects the Chinese counter-narrative about the ongoing crimes against humanity and genocide being perpetrated against the Uyghurs. Since its beginning, the Chinese government has framed these human rights atrocities as “counter-terrorism” measures, while in reality it has criminalised all every-day and legal forms of religious behaviour, such as wearing a beard or hijab, and possessing a Quran. In East Turkistan, any form of adhering to or practicing Islam has become punishable by detainment in one of the many concentration camps, where Uyghurs are exposed to systematic torture, rape, malnutrition, and forced labour.

This has also been highlighted by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in its assessment of the situation in East Turkistan. Analysing the Chinese government’s so-called “counter-terrorism” policies, it concluded that these are “deeply problematic from the perspective of international human rights norms and standards”, and “has in practice led to the large-scale arbitrary deprivation of liberty of members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim communities”.

The WUC reiterates its urgent call on Muslim-majority countries, Islamic religious leaders, and the global Ummah as a whole to firmly denounce the Chinese government’s atrocity crimes against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim peoples.