For more than a decade, the world has witnessed increasing evidence of internment camps, forced sterilizations, family separations, religious and cultural persecution, organ harvesting, forced work and high -tech surveillance emerging from eastern Turkistan – an occupied China nation. These atrocities, targeting Uighurs and other Turkish peoples, have led several governments, including the United States, to designate the actions of China as a genocide, while the United Nations identified them as crimes against humanity. The genocide of the Uighurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and other Turkish peoples is systematically considered as a simple violation of human rights or a symptom of authoritarian overtaking. Such a framing obscures the deep cause: the illegal occupation and the continuous colonization of East Turkistan by China. To put an end to genocide and reach peace, dignity and sustainable justice for the eastern people of the Turkistani, the world must recognize that it is not a question of human rights or religious persecution – it is a colonial crisis. And like all colonial projects, he does not ask for a reform, but an end.
Eastern Turkistan, which houses Uighours, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and other Turkish peoples, has a long and distinct history, culture and identity distinct from that of China. While the Empire of Manchu Qing occupied the nation in 1759, the occupation of Qing on East Turkistan was never continuous or consensual. The inhabitants of East Turkistan have constantly resisted, launching 42 uprisings between 1759 and 1864 and resumed independence as the state of Yette Sheher (1864-1877), before being replenished by the Qing Empire in December 1877.
In 1884, Beijing renamed the country “Xinjiang” (which means “new territory”) – a colonial term imposed to normalize its conquest, and the Chinese settlers were encouraged to modify the demography of the nation. They are not simply administrative measures – they have been calculated in the construction of a colonial regime. However, the people of East Turkistan continued to resist the occupation and sought to restore their independence.
The people of Eastern Turkistan has redaclated their independence twice in the 20th century – in 1933 and again in 1944 – which concerns the Eastern Republic of Turkistan. Before being the victim of geopolitical transactions and military occupation. The two republics were short -lived, undermined by geopolitical maneuvers and military assault. n 1949, following the rise of the Chinese Communist Party in power, the Popular Liberation Army invaded East Turkistan with Soviet support. Under the pretext of “peaceful liberation”, the PLA has dismantled the sovereignty of East Turkistan and imposed a colonial regime which persists today.
Since then, Beijing has implemented long -term strategies aimed at erasing the national identity of East Turkistan and integrating the nation into its project of national construction focused on Han. These strategies have included the mass regulations of Chinese colonists Han, the criminalization of the history and identity of the oriental Turkistani, the abolition of cultural and religious freedoms, the dismantling of indigenous institutions and the violent suppression of dissent. Although some observers call these policies as “assimilation”, such language underestimates the scope and violence of the actions of China. It is not cultural integration – it is national erasure and demographic replacement.
The current Uighur genocide is the last phase of this campaign for several decades. He went beyond political repression in an effort in its own right to destroy the physically, culturally and psychologically eastern Turkistan nation. Millions of Ughurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and other Turkish peoples have been arbitrarily detained in concentration camps, where they are subject to indoctrination, torture, sexual violence and forced work. In addition, experts estimate that at least 25,000 to 50,000 Uighurs are killed each year only for their organs. Agoure and other Turkish women are strengthened by force or forced to undergo abortions to prevent the birth of future generations. More than a million aughure and other Turkish children are separated from their families and placed in boarding schools managed by the State designed to break their cultural and linguistic ties. More than 16,000 mosques, cemeteries and historic sites have been demolished, while uduries and other teachings of Turkish language have been eliminated from public education.
In international law, these actions meet the criteria described in the United Nations Genocide Convention. The Chinese campaign fulfills the five acts defined as a genocide. This includes the death of members of the group through executions, massacres, death resulting from torture and negligence in concentration camps and systematic organ harvesting. This also involves causing serious bodily or mental damage, through forced labor, indoctrination, physical and sexual abuse and long -term psychological trauma. The Chinese regime has deliberately inflicted living conditions calculated to provoke the physical destruction of the group, in particular mass internment, surveillance, forced separation of families and deprivation of basic needs. In addition, China has imposed measures intended to prevent births, such as forced sterilizations, abortions, birth prevention policies and the destruction of the structures of the Oigles family. Finally, he has forcibly transferred the group’s children to another group by removing more than a million heic and other Turkish children from their families and to place them in residential schools and orphanages led by the Chinese state.
What makes this genocide even more insidious is its bureaucratic and technological sophistication. PCC uses AI monitoring, biometric data collection and the megadroned police to monitor and control all aspects of the oriental life in Turkistan. The genocide of East Turkistan is not committed with mass bombs or pits – it is executed with facial recognition cameras, QR codes, “predictive” applications, forced sterilizations, forced abortions, organ harvesting and crematoriums to hide the proofs.
The answer does not reside in the ideology alone but in geopolitical calculation. Eastern Turkistan is at the heart of the world’s global ambitions. It serves as a strategic strip trail of the Belt and Road (BRI) initiative, through which China seeks to reshape the global trade and influence. More than 60% of Chinese land trade passes in the region. Rich in oil, natural gas, gold, lithium and rare land, East Turkistan is not only a corridor, but a basis for resources essential to the industrial economy of China.
Chinese strategists have long seen East Turkistan as a buffer protecting the Chinese state against threats perceived for its west and the North. This logic continues to shape Beijing’s approach today: the occupation of East Turkistan is at the heart of the progress of the geopolitical ambitions of China, in particular the control of critical infrastructure, access to Central Asia and the stability of its broader colonial system. The erasure of oriental Turkistan does not concern internal security – it is imperial consolidation and expansion.
The Uighur genocide is therefore not a national or regional question – it is international. It is rooted in a colonial model of domination which has major implications for global security, trade and human rights. However, the international community continues to treat eastern Turkistan as part of the “internal affairs” of China, even if it condemns the crimes that take place there. This contradiction lies at the heart of the world failure to stop the genocide.
By supervising the question simply as that of “human rights” or “religious repression”, leaders obscure the main truth: East Turkistan is an occupied country, and Uighurs are not a “minority group”, but a besieged nation. This framing benefits Beijing by allowing him to invoke sovereignty and non-interference to protect himself from responsibility. In reality, China uses the language of sovereignty to justify colonization. This distortion of international standards must be challenged.
Tackling the Uighur genocide requires a change in world thinking. First, East Turkistan must be recognized as an occupied country, with the law of its people to the external self -determination affirmed under international law. THE A charter, THE International Covenant on Civil and Political RightsAnd other legal instruments affirm the right of all peoples to determine their political status. Uings and other Turkish peoples have never chosen to be part of China; Their subjugation was applied by military occupation, demographic engineering, systemic repression and a campaign of cultural and national erasure – no integration or coexistence, but of elimination.
Second, the genocide must be understood as part of a wider colonial project, not only as an episode of repression. This includes the recognition of mass slavery, demographic engineering and physical and cultural erasure as fundamental tools of colonial domination. Efforts to deal with these violations must be combined with political actions to put an end to the illegal occupation of China in East Turkistan.
Third, the votes of the institutions and leaders of the Turkistani East must be included in international discussions on the future of the nation. The Government of East Turkistan in exile, as well as rights for the defense of rights and the communities of the diaspora, have called for recognition, justice and decolonization for decades. Their perspectives are essential for any serious solution.
Finally, international legal mechanisms must be pursued urgently. This includes the support of the Oriental Turkistan case to the International Criminal Court and the deposit of additional affairs to the International Court of Justice, the sanction of Chinese officials and the entities involved in the genocide, and to support the surveys under the universal laws of competence before the national courts.
The failure of the international community to stop the genocide of East Turkistan is not simply a failure of will – it is a failure of principle. As long as governments, media and international institutions continue to deal with this as an “internal problem” for China, the genocide will continue. It is only by reframing this as a crisis of occupation, colonization and national survival that the way to justice can become clear.
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