May 28, 2024

WASHINGTON D.C. – Campaign for Uyghurs (CFU) has expressed alarm over a recent statement from Chen Wenqing, Secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, regarding the Chinese government’s counterterrorism policies in East Turkistan. Chen declared that these policies must be “normalized,” which CFU interprets as a commitment to ongoing genocidal actions against Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples.

From Wednesday, May 22nd to Sunday, May 26th, Chen visited East Turkistan and instructed local officials to prioritize “maintaining social stability” and “accurately prevent and crack down on violent terrorist crimes.” The Chinese government has consistently used counterterrorism as a justification for its actions against the Uyghur population. These actions have included mass detentions, cultural suppression, forced labor, forced abortions and sterilizations, forced organ harvesting, and other human rights abuses. Islamic practices such as praying and reading the Quran are monitored and labeled as “extremism.”

The call to further “normalize” counterterrorism efforts indicates potential increases in surveillance, restrictions, and arbitrary detentions of Uyghurs.

Rushan Abbas, Founder and Executive Director of CFU, responded: “Chen Wenqing’s statement is a blatant admission that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intends to perpetuate a permanent campaign of genocide against the Uyghurs. Instead of addressing international scrutiny, they are doubling down on their efforts. The international community must see through the CCP’s propaganda and euphemisms, which justify their horrific crimes as ‘counterterrorism measures.’ Governments and global institutions need to rise up and impose meaningful consequences for this barbarism or the nightmare that the Uyghurs are enduring will continue.”

CFU urges international entities, governments, corporations, and NGOs to recognize the ongoing atrocities in the Uyghur region and take action to hold the CCP accountable for its crimes.