Protests in Amsterdam and Stockholm Highlight Uyghur Atrocities by China
On July 7, representatives from the East Turkistan Government in Exile (ETGE) and the Swedish Uyghur Committee (SUC) organized protests in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and Stockholm, Sweden. These protests aimed to bring attention to the suffering of the Uyghur community in East Turkistan due to actions by Chinese authorities.
Protest in Amsterdam
At Dam Square in Amsterdam, Salih Hudayar, the Foreign Affairs Minister of ETGE, called on the Dutch government to pressure China to stop the ongoing genocide against the Uyghur community. Hudayar emphasized the need for East Turkistan’s independence to ensure human rights and dignity for its people.
Hudayar stated, “We urge the government to act against China’s ongoing campaign of colonization, genocide, and occupation. We want them to support the people of East Turkistan to get their rights to independence and right to human dignity. The restoration of East Turkistan’s independence is the only way to ensure that their human rights, their resistance, and their human dignity are guaranteed.”
Protest in Stockholm
In Stockholm, a protestor from the Swedish Uyghur Committee spoke outside the Swedish Parliament, recalling the 2009 Urumqi massacre where many Uyghurs were killed and arrested. The protestor highlighted the oppressive measures China has implemented since then, including mass internment, forced labor, and cultural destruction.
The protestor said, “On that unfateful day, hundreds if not thousands of Uyghurs were massacred and tens of thousands were arrested across East Turkistan. Since then, the Chinese occupational forces have implemented an even more oppressive surveillance-driven police state, laying a groundwork for the ongoing genocide.”
The protestor also mentioned China’s ‘People’s War’ operation in East Turkistan, which began in 2014, leading to systematic genocide. Millions of Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic people have been subjected to mass internment, forced labor, and other severe human rights abuses.
“Many are enslaved in factories and forced labor camps under abhorrent conditions, and the scope of this genocide is staggering. During 2016-17, the Chinese regime forcibly collected DNA, voice prints, and retina scans from over 36 million individuals aged between 12 to 65. Millions of poor men have been forcibly sterilized, and over a million Uyghur children have been separated from their families and placed in state-run facilities to be raised as loyal Chinese citizens,” the protestor added.
The protestor continued, “Over 60,000 mosques and other cultural sites have been destroyed in an attempt to erase our cultural heritage.”
