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Tag: Uyghurs

Interview with Abduweli Ayup (Project Manager at Uyghur Hjelp)

Editor010 mins

Can you tell us about the founding and mission of Uyghur Hjelp? What inspired its creation? I organized 7 Uyghur volunteers in September 2016 to preserve and protect the Uyghur language and culture, document human rights violations in the Uyghur homeland, advocate transnational repression, investigate mass internment, and provide humanitarian aid. The mass arrests, forced assimilation in the Uyghur homeland and students lost their schools in Turkey because of family separation. There were more than 300 hundred students in Turkey who lost contact with their parents and faced losing their studies. We provide humanitarian aid to those students.  We also assist camp victims, their kids, and camp survivors.    How does Uyghur Hjelp document human rights violations against Uyghurs, and what challenges do you face in this process? We interview people and collect their stories. They told us what happened to them and their family members since the mass arrests started. We also collect evidence from Chinese social media content and verify those through interviews with the people who are living in the diaspora. We collect the evidence that is leaked to us and sent to us from China. The challenges were, that Chinese local police tried to silence people using their family members as hostages in China. The Chinese embassy using their staff tries to convince people to come to them, instead of talking to us. We can’t promise people that they can save their family members from the camps by talking to us, they always ask what can change, can they save their family members from the Chinese prisons if they talk to us and talk to the journalists? They keep asking what happened to their family members, but we can’t tell and answer their questions, what we can do is just send those documents to the United States, and related Human Rights Organizations, but they can’t do anything specific. What are the most pressing human rights issues currently facing the Uyghur community, both in China and in the diaspora? Could you provide more details on the specific projects Uyghur Hjelp undertakes, such as documenting the Uyghur genocide and preserving Uyghur culture in the diaspora? In September 2016, I founded Uyghur Hjelp, a non-profit activist organization involved in documenting the Uyghur genocide and supporting educational and humanitarian efforts for the benefit of Uyghurs in the diaspora. My team published 15 books to preserve the Uyghur language. https://www.uyghurkitap.com/publisher.php?id=71 Uyghur Hjelp documented imprisoned Uyghur mother language teachers, and publishers. Uyghur Hjelp assisted Uyghurs in mother language education in Istanbul Turkey Refererences : https://www.rfa.org/uyghur/xewerler/maarip/oqush-yardem-12142017173847.html Uyghur Hjelp supported Uyghur students in mother language classes in Istanbul Turkey. Uyghur Hjelp produced audio and videos for Uyghur kids Uyghur Hjelp on preserving Uyghur culture Uyghur Hjelp held the Uyghur Culture Festival separately in November 2019 and Mart 2022 for the Uyghur Culture Festival and Uyghur Poetry Festival held in Bergen. (Reference) Documentation and investigation From September 2022 Uyghur Hjelp continued its investigation, documentation, advocating, and hamartian aid. We kept conducting interviews with camp survivors, victims, and witnesses. In September 2022, we documented two new camp survivors’ stories, collected five victims’ experiences, and collected some witnesses’ testimonies. Their story was introduced to the media and researchers, they were published by the Economist, BBC, and other media recently.  Uyghur textbooks and cultural activities Uyghur Hjelp Published other 4 volumes of the Uyghur Textbook which was published in 2 volumes last year, their audio version was prepared and shared on YouTube. We are going to publish other volumes and their audio versions gradually. Mather Language handbook: (Reference) Uyghur History Camp for Uyghur Teens: (Reference) Uyghur Hjelp continued its support to students studying in Turkish universities. We have granted 3 PhD and one master’s student so far, the grant will continue this semester as well. With our support 2 PhD and one master’s students graduated in January 2023. Uyghur Hjelp organized a media workshop with the World Uyghur Congress in Istanbul in February 2024. We trained 17 participants from Turkey and other Central Asian republics. They have started their work against Chinese propaganda in Central Asia. With those activists, we started the Ortlaland project to raise awareness in Russia and Central Asia. The project has already started. (Reference) Uyghur Hjelp held a spring camp for Uyghur teens from European countries in April 2024. We took them to the Humboldt Museum and introduced Uyghur history. There are 30 students from 10 countries participated in the event. https://thechinaproject.com/author/aviackermann Uyghur Hjelp continued documenting imprisoned Uyghur intellectuals, investigating hard strake policy against Uyghurs and new trends of detentions in different cities. It started to collect and classify social media information, such as videos,  texts, and government files. Uyghur Hjlep completed the report about Uyghur Intellectuals, Imams, and female spiritual leaders. Abduweli Ayup and Dr. Racheal Harris finished writing the report, which is going to be released soon. Another project about Uyghur children in the boarding school is ongoing. Uyghur Hjelp has prepared, edited, and translated biographies for Uyghur intellectuals who were imprisoned in China. We are planning to publish their works in English in the future. (Reference) Connect with Abduweli Ayup to support his cause : Click Here About the Organization : Uyghur Hjelp (also known as Uyghuryar), a non-profit Uyghur human rights advocacy, documentation, and humanitarian aid organization that aims to research human rights violations, document Uyghur detainees, collect information about Uyghur plight, and also support Uyghurs in the diaspora who are encountering with various challenges and the difficulties. This organization is not affiliated with any organizations. All participants of Uyghur Hjelp are passionate, dedicated, and sincere individuals who support this organization by making financial donations and/or by contributing their time and professional skills to help Uyghurs.

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Millions of helpless Uyghurs in Xinjiang under forced slavery : UN

Editor09 mins

Minorities in China’s Xinjiang region are forced to work against their will and face physical and sexual violence and “other inhuman or degrading treatment” in what may constitute a modern form of slavery, a report released on Tuesday by a United Nations office said. In the 20-page report, Tomoya Obokata, the United Nations special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, said that Uyghur, Kazakh and other ethnic minorities were being used as forced labor in sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing. Members of these groups are detained and subject to work placements under state-mandated vocational skills education and training system and a poverty alleviation program that places surplus rural workers in sectors short of employees.  Similar measures exist in neighboring Tibet, where an extensive labor transfer program has shifted Tibetan farmers, herders and other rural workers into low-skilled and low-paid jobs, according to the report, which was published for the U.N. Human Rights Council’s 51st session that runs Sept. 12-Oct. 7. “While these programs may create employment opportunities for minorities and enhance their incomes, as claimed by the government, the special rapporteur considers that indicators of forced labor pointing to the involuntary nature of work rendered by affected communities have been present in many cases,” the report says in reference to Xinjiang. The report adds that workers endure “excessive surveillance, abusive living and working conditions, restriction of movement through internment, threats, physical and/or sexual violence and other inhuman or degrading treatment.”  It said in some instances the conditions the workers face “may amount to enslavement as a crime against humanity, meriting a further independent analysis.” The Chinese government has held an estimated 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in a vast network of “re-education” camps that Beijing says is meant to prevent religious extremism and terrorism in the region. Forced or compulsory labor has been a key part of the systematic repression of the groups. Obokata’s report comes as Uyghur activist groups await the issuance of an overdue report on rights abuses in Xinjiang by U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet, who originally informed the Human Rights Council in September 2021 that her office was close to completing its assessment of allegations of rights violations in the region. Three months later, a spokesperson said the report would be issued in a matter of weeks, but it was not. In July, Bachelet’s office said the report was still being worked on and would be released before she leaves office later this month. Bachelet angered Uyghur activist groups after she visited China, including Xinjiang, in late May, repeating China’s assertion that the internment camps, referred to by Beijing as vocational training centers, had all been closed. The groups denounced the trip as a propaganda opportunity that allowed China to whitewash its crimes against humanity and genocide against the Uyghurs.  The U.S. and the legislatures of several Western countries have declared that China’s repression in Xinjiang constitutes genocide and crime against humanity. “The release of the U.N. report on contemporary forms of slavery is highly significant at a time when China is doing everything in its power to suppress the publication of the Uyghur report by the office of the U.N. High Commissioner Bachelet,” Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC).  The findings of Obokata’s report that forced labor, and even slavery, exists in Xinjiang demonstrates “the crimes China is committing against Uyghurs,” he said. Washington, D.C.-based Campaign for Uyghurs (CFU) said the report was an “extremely important and comprehensive assessment.”  “We have been telling the world for years that China uses Uyghur slavery as an essential tool and enabling China’s economy and making the ongoing Uyghur genocide a profitable venture,” Rushan Abbas, CFU’s executive director, said in a statement. “It’s a relief to see the United Nations finally recognize the extent to which these atrocities are taking place,” she said. “Now tangible actions are needed to hold the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] accountable for these crimes based on these recent findings.” Adrian Zenz, a researcher at the Washington, D.C.-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and expert on the Xinjiang region, called the report “a strong statement” in which the rapporteur expressed that there is “reasonable evidence to conclude that forced labor is taking place in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and then a similar program existing in Tibet.” “And then he says in some cases the situation may amount to enslavement as a crime against humanity,” he told IJreportika. “That’s the strongest form. This is quite a sort of a formal assessment at a very high level.” Zenz noted that Obokata’s report comes nearly four days after China ratified two International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions on forced labor, one of which is designed to counter state-sponsored forced labor, forbidding its use for political aims and economic development. The other convention prohibits the use of forced labor in all forms and requires state parties to make forced labor practices punishable as a penal offense.  Translated by RFA Uyghur. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

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