'Every Uyghur is freedom fighter': Uyghur leader vows to fight back against Chinese atrocities in Xinjiang
Nov 15, 2020
Washington [US], November 15 : Protesting against Chinese atrocities on minorities in Xinjiang province, an Uyghur leader has vowed to fight against Chinese Communist Party to liberate East Turkistan, saying every Uyghur around the world is a "freedom fighter" and "we will not rest until we make our people free."
In a fiery speech during a protest to commemorate East Turkistan's Independence Day, the leader said: "We will not rest until we make our people free. We will not back down... We have rights. We have very basic fundamental right to fight against you every day, every hour. so today I want to say every Uyghur in the world is the soldier every Uyghur around the world is a freedom fighter."
To commemorate Independence Day on November 12, protests were held against China in various cities around the world.
East Turkistan or Xinjiang region is home to around 10 million Uyghurs. The Turkic Muslim group, which makes up around 45 per cent of Xinjiang's population, has long accused China's authorities of cultural, religious and economic discrimination.
About 7 per cent of the Muslim population in Xinjiang, has been incarcerated in an expanding network of "political re-education" camps, according to US officials and UN experts.
East Turkistan government in exile said that the Uyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Tatar and other peoples of East Turkistan have spent the last 71 years fighting to restore their independence.
For the last six years, millions of East Turkistan people, mostly of Muslim faith, have been held in concentration camps, prisons and slave labour camps.
According to survivors' accounts, they are being tortured, killed for their organs, raped, sterilised and executed.
The government-in-exile is advocating for official recognition from the world's governments and parliaments.
Classified documents known as the China Cables, accessed last year by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, threw light on how the Chinese government uses technology to control Uyghur Muslims worldwide.
However, China regularly denies such mistreatment and says the camps provide vocational training. People in the internment camps have described being subjected to forced political indoctrination, torture, beatings, and denial of food and medicine, and say they have been prohibited from practising their religion or speaking their language.
