Members of the Uyghur community and activists marched towards the White House Thursday evening to demand action over Beijing’s treatment of Uyghurs and Tibetans.
They’re urging U.S. President Trump to confront China’s President Xi on human rights issues and the new ‘ethnic unity law’ enacted on July 1 which critics say furthers Beijing’s efforts towards cultural erasure.
“President Trump must confront Xi Jinping over China’s ongoing genocide against the Uyghurs, the Kazakhs, the Kyrgyz and other native people of occupied East Turkistan,” said Haider Jan of the East Turkistan National Movement.
“No diplomatic truce can ever be bought with our people’s blood, dignity and land,” he said.
U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, ranking Democratic member of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) said, “We should be standing here together with a unified message: no Xi in DC without human rights.”
McGovern addressed Tibetan demonstrators in front of the U.S. Capitol earlier in the day.
“The Chinese government would like the world to believe that what’s happening in East Turkistan or what’s happening in Tibet or Southern Mongolia is an internal matter,” said Rushan Abbas, Executive Director of Campaign for Uyghurs. “But genocide and cultural erasure is not an internal matter. Modern slavery is not an internal matter.”
After sunset, demonstrators held candles as speakers addressed the crowd.
“So many of us live in a constant state of grief,” said Omer Kanat of the Uyghur Human Rights Project.
“It is a strange, abstract grief. Not knowing where our loved ones are. If they are safe, or in some cases, if they are alive.”
With reporting by Tahir Hamut Izgil for RFA Uyghur and Reuters. Edited by Charlie Dharapak.
