[photo by Nicholas Mason]
Uighur (Uyghur)Muslims with the support of Sound Vision and Burma Task Force organized a mass rally in the nation's capital on April 6, 2019 to free the Uighur people, who continue to face systematic, escalating persecution in China.
A thousand-strong crowd sent a strong message that such brazen violations of human rights are unacceptable and called on the U.S. government to act. Buses came from Long Island and Manhattan, in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and 10 masajid around the DMV.
The Uighurs are a predominantly Muslim, Turkic ethnicity who have lived for centuries in the vast region of northwestern China, which the Chinese government refers to as “Xinjiang.” This term means “New Territory”. The territory has long been afflicted with conflict, but recently the Chinese state has escalated its campaign of oppression there. Estimates of the number of Uighurs in involuntary detainment range from 1 to 3 million.
The rally took place at 1 p.m., on April 6, 2019 in Freedom Plaza, opposite Trump Plaza, in Washington D.C. 20004.
Statements from several senators’ offices as well as the State Department’s Office of Religious Freedom were read from the stage. World Uyghur Congress and the Uyghur Human Rights Project took lead of the program, with Uyghur leader Omar Kannat at the helm as the Master of Ceremonies.
In an act of in incredible courage, Mihrigul Tursun, who spent 10 months in the Chinese concentration camp tortured through electrocution in a “tiger chair”, also spoke at the rally. She was released because of the condition of her toddlers. Her eldest son died in Chinese custody. "I thought I would rather die than go through this torture. I begged them to kill me," she said. "They told me my mother and son had died. My father was serving life in prison and that my family was torn apart because of me."
Tursun recalled the terrible conditions of the cells she was forced into and how many women died as a result of the internment. Earlier this week, US Senator Marco Rubio and other elected officials published a joint press release indicating they were leading a bipartisan group of 24 Senators and 19 Representatives in urging for stronger sanctions, export controls and financial disclosures to counter Chinese human rights abuses in East Turkistan.
Jasmine, an attendee of the IMAAM Center had come down from Gaithersburg on the bus that departed from the Islamic Center of Maryland. “This is a great event. In our local community, we need to have more events to highlight this issue to mobilize more people,” she said.
Irum Mansor, a student from Rutgers University brought her extended family, despite it being exam season.
I had no idea about this before which is quite shameful. It is mortifying … People were coming from Texas and I live in New Jersey, I had to come,” said Mansor while displaying posters her sister crafted for the rally.
Dolkun Isa, President of the World Uyghur Congress said people must act before it is too late. “We say ‘Never Again’, but when will we ever mean it?”
Local leadership urged for a boycott of Chinese made products at the rally. The Maryland based Ummah Uyghur Awareness Coalition, an effort to educate Muslims on their responsibility towards their brothers and sisters, distributed literature about the boycott.
Public awareness of China's brutal policies is growing. Over a million Uighur Muslims have been sent to camps run by the Chinese government for ideological indoctrination and forced labor. Uighur children have been forcibly separated from their parents and sent to orphanages to be raised as communists, and at least a million members of the Chinese Communist Party have been sent to live with Uighur families as mandatory, supervisory “guests.”
“We are calling on our brothers and sisters in the Muslim community, the interfaith community, and in elected office to send a clear statement that says concentration camps cannot be tolerated in the 21st century,” said Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid, President of the Sound Vision Foundation and a leader of the Save Uighur campaign. “This is happening, in part, because the world did not act to prevent a brutal regime from persecuting and terrorizing the Rohingya. Other authoritarian countries have taken note and are simply following suit,” said Mujahid. “We must act now to Save the Uighur people.”
Sister rallies were held in Los Angeles and Houston.
The Save Uighur Campaign is an educational project of Sound Vision, mobilized by Justice For All, which also administers the Burma Task Force. Concerned people can visit the advocacy website and make automated calls to their elected officials to urge action on the bills currently in Congress.
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