World Uyghur Congress, 26 July 2019

#NoRightsNoGames2022 Campaign Launched

On Wednesday, July 24, the campaign #NoRightsNoGames2022 was launched, calling on the IOC to unmistakably convey to the Chinese government that as long as millions of Uyghurs are detained in camps and millions more are forced to renounce their ethnic identity, China is not fit to host the 2022 Winter Olympics. The campaign was launched one year from the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics and will continue at least until then.

Ms. Irade Kashgary, a Uyghur rights activist, spoke in the name of @NoRightsNoGames to Deutsche Welle, demanding that the Uyghur people’s human rights be respected by China ahead of the Beijing Olympics.

Forced labor, mass surveillance and holding millions in arbitrary detention contravenes directly the Olympic Charter’s basic principles of promoting a peaceful society and preserving human dignity.

Chinese White Paper Seeks to Erase Uyghur Culture and Identity

On Sunday 21 July, 2019, the Chinese government published a policy paper, with which the Chinese government is trying to rewrite history and erase the Uyghur ethnic identity. Ignoring history, facts and the feelings of the Uyghur people, the paper denies their Turkic roots and calls their homeland of East Turkistan an “inseparable part of China”. In a bid to further sinicise Islam and contribute to the cultural genocide already in progress against the Uyghur people, it moreover alleges that Islam is not an indigenous belief system in the Uyghur region and that the conversion to Islam was involuntary.

Uyghurs Who Escaped China’s Crackdown In East Turkistan Still Live in Fear

According to the Agence France Presse article published this week, Uyghurs in exiles are living in fear of China’s crackdown even when holding a western passport. AFP interviewed Uyghurs across four continents that gave them information on the text and voice messages they received from the Chinese authorities demanding for corporation or silence. 

The AFP interviewed a Uyghur women living in Canada who received messages from the Chinese police threatening her family still remaining in the Uyghur region. She told AFP that the reason she was targeted is because of her activism role in speaking out against the Chinese authorities online and helped stateless Uyghurs to seek help abroad. 

The Chinese government often tries to silence any active voice opposing the Chinese policies in the Uyghur region. It is important for the individual states to rally other countries whose citizens are also threatened by the Chinese government and protect its citizens basic rights.