Today is 31th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre. 4th June is not only a mourning day for Chinese peoples, but also a mourning day for the entirely world and human being. 31 year ago, the Communist Chinese Army didn’t any hesitate to kill thousands Chinese students and innocent peoples. Those peoples only wanted the same fundamental rights and freedoms that all people should have, due to our common humanity.
We never and ever forget the peoples who died at the hands of the Chinese communist Army.
Uyghur students also took to the street in East Turkistan to support and showed their solidarity for Beijing students in 1989.
In the 31 years since, any rights and freedoms we did previously had have been stripped away. the situation in East Turkistan now is the worst I have ever seen it. Now is a critical time for the Uyghur people, for China and for the world as a whole. While the Uyghur people have always faced oppression, now we are facing a systematic attack on everything that makes us unique: our culture, language, history and religion. As the Chinese government tries to totally culturally assimilate the Uyghur people, the very core of our people, our Uyghur ethnic identity, is at risk.
As we speak, an estimated 3 million Uyghurs are being arbitrarily detained in the concentration camps. They are innocent people. They are our mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children, family and friends. They are scholars, community leaders, businessmen, athletes, musicians and ordinary civilians, detained because of their Uyghur ethnicity.
What happens in East Turkistan will not only determine the fate of the Uyghur people, but will have an impact on the future of our international order. The Chinese government should end its aggressive policy and must stop its cultural genocide of the Uyghur people, Tibet, Inner Mongolia peoples, and all others.
The reality of our current situation is that all those who long for democracy and human rights in China are facing unprecedented persecution. Uyghurs, Tibetans, Southern Mongolians, Hong Kongers, Christians, Muslims and Buddhists are all facing repression like never before. Taiwan is facing a potentially existential situation from an increasingly aggressive China.
We urge the Chinese government to offer a transparent account of the June 4, Tiananmen massacre, the Lhasa uprising in 2008, the Urumchi massacre in 2009, the concentration camps in East Turkistan and call national security laws for Hong Kong to punish CCP officials responsible for human rights violations committed against humanity.
Dolkun Isa
President of the World Uyghur Congress