URAP Commemorates the Victims of July 5th Urumchi Massacre and Calls for Accountability

July 5, 2022
For Immediate Release

On this day, 13 years ago a peaceful Uyghur demonstrators took to the streets demanding the police investigation into the lynching and killings of Uyghur workers at Shaoguan factory in China by the organized attacks of local mobs. Their rightful demands were met by live bullets and followed by the unaccounted number of deaths, enforced disappearances and long period of the arbitrary detentions of
Uyghurs in East Turkistan.

“July 5th Urumchi massacre was the beginning of the “show absolutely no mercy” era with the showcase of extreme brutalities of the government towards rightful demands of Uyghurs to seek justice for the killings of their loved ones”, said, Mehmet Tohti, the executive director of the URAP. “Lack of action by the international community at that crucial time emboldened China to the level of today’s unfolding Uyghur genocide in East Turkistan.

What has happened in Urumchi in 2009 was an alarm bell of worst to come with an introduction of the system of the population mass-surveillance, running the concentration camps for the whole ethnic group, liquidating of all signs of “Uyghur Identity” and turning the region into an open-air prison with ongoing genocide.

Fast-forward to 2022, Canadian Parliament was the first legislative body in the world to recognize the Uyghur Genocide, eight more states and European Parliament did exactly the same. Despite the fact that the international community are fully aware of atrocity crimes of genocide and crime against humanity that Chinese state is committing against the Uyghurs, Kazaks and other Turkic people in East Turkistan, all national governments, except the government of the United States of America, have
chosen to be silent, disregarding the will of their parliaments.

URAP reiterates the importance of these governments re-evaluating their position on the Uyghur genocide, considering, among other things, the final judgement of December 9, 2021 of the Uyghur Tribunal, chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice, Q.C., and new evidence recently published as Police Files[ST1], and hold China accountable for their crimes, including the crimes committed 13 years ago in Urumchi.

For more inquiry:
Mehmet Tohti, Executive Director of the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project
www.urap.ca @uyghuradvocacy 613 261 8512