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Weekly Brief July 19

Weekly Brief July 19

World Uyghur Congress, 19 July 2019

Uyghur Congress Attends U.S. Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom

On Tuesday, July 16, 2019, the World Uyghur Congress and Campaign for Uyghurs co-hosted a side-event to the second U.S. State Department Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom on Capitol Hill entitled “Uyghurs: Oppression for the Sake of Progression in China”. The opening remarks were delivered by Scott Busby, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State at the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights & Labor.

The subsequent panel was comprised of WUC President Dolkun Isa, Human Rights First President, Mike Breen, Human Rights Watch China Director, Sophie Richardson and Director of Public Affairs for Campaign for Uyghurs, Jewher Ilham. The discussion addressed topics including the persecution and detention of 1-2 million Uyghurs in internment camps, the power of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, dept-trap diplomacy, Chinese manipulation within the UN, and further support and coordination on the Uyghur cause.

Nury Turkel, Chairman and Founder of the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP), acted as the master of ceremonies at the Ministerial’s panel entitled “Shining a Light On The Uyghur Crisis & Reflecting On Our Global Movement For Religious Freedom”. Greg Mitchell, Co-Chair of the International Religious Freedom Roundtable, delivered the welcome address at the event. The Panelists included Sam Brownback, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, Lisa Curtis, Senior Director for Central and South Asia, National Security Council of the White House, Nadine Maenza, USCIRF Vice Chair, Anwar Khan, President of Islamic Relief USA as well as Tom Gallagher, CEO and Publisher of Religion News Service. WUC President Dolkun Isa and WUC Executive Committee Chairman/UHRP Director Omer Kanat, addressed the audience with closing statements and calls to action.

The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) also organized a side-event at Capitol Hill during the meetings entitled, “The Mass Destruction and Desecration of Uyghur Mosques by China” on Tuesday, July 16. The event aimed to uncover the systematic campaign to eradicate Uyghur Muslim culture, traditions and identity through the destruction and desecration of places of worship. It was co-moderated by Louisa Greve, Director of External Affairs at UHRP and Fernando Burges, U.S. Representative of UNPO. Speakers included Bahram Sintash, Founder of Uyghurism.com, Omer Kanat, UHRP Director and Benedict Rogers, East Asia Team Leader at Christian Solidarity Worldwide.

On Wednesday, July 17, Uyghur Congress President Dolkun Isa also spoke at the UNPO-organized side-event on “Compromised Space: How the UN is Becoming an Ever More Dangerous Place for Representatives of Religious and Other Minorities”. This panel discussion was moderated by Fernando Burges and included speakers from diverse minority advocacy backgrounds.

Australian Uyghur Voices Finally Heard by Their Government

Following an ABC Four Corners program on Monday, July 15, 2019, which detailed the desperate situation of Uyghur Australians with family members trapped in East Turkistan, the tide appears to be turning in favor of action by the Australian government, as many Australian Uyghurs dared to speak out against Chinese oppression.

One example included Sadam Abudusalamu, a young Uyghur Australian man who bravely informed the Australian public in a touching interview on Four Corners about the fate of his wife, who is not allowed to leave China, despite her two-year-old son holding Australian citizenship. After half a year contacting Australian officials, seeking assistance to have his son brought to his home country, this week the Australian Foreign Minister declared that the Australian Embassy in Beijing had formally requested that Mr. Abudusalamu’s wife and son be allowed to travel to Australia.

ITV documentary on Uyghur Crisis Exposes Extent of Oppression in East Turkistan

ITV worked with a Han-Chinese filmmaker, who went undercover to expose the true extent of the Chinese government’s horrific repression of Uyghurs. The documentary, “Undercover: Inside China’s Digital Gulag”, provided crucial insights into the situation on the ground and contains interviews with people directly involved with the crisis, including a Chinese official responsible for security in East Turkistan and executives and engineers who have worked on the CCP’s dystopian model of surveillance, security and control.

Jewher Ilham Addresses Concentration Camps in Meeting with U.S. President Trump

Public Affairs Director of Campaign for Uyghurs and daughter of detained Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti, Jewher Ilham, was received by U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday, July 17, at the Oval Office alongside other victims of religious persecution. This was the first official meeting of a Uyghur community representative with President Trump, who called the situation faced by Uyghurs detained in the Chinese concentration camps “tough stuff”.