China is adding new massacres to the list of massacres it has committed in East Turkistan over centuries. The last of these took place on July 5 when two Uyghurs were killed on 26 June in 2009 by Han Chinese at a toy factory and the firing of hundreds of Uyghurs from the same factory. A protest staged in Urumqi on 5 July by relatives of the two killed Uyghurs triggered a fresh Chinese massacre.
Several days after the incident at the factory thousands led by university students staged protest rallies and demanded that the government break the silence on the incident and it be investigated by an independent commission. But the opposite happened and instead of acting to investigate the incident the police fired on protesters arbitrarily. Moreover, the government shifted additional 130,000 troops from neighboring regions to major cities of East Turkistan. Unofficial sources put the death toll of 5 July events at over 3000 Uyghurs. To restrain worsening situation Chinese authorities moved to conceal their slaughter by blocking internet connections, international and local phone services as well as spread of any information out of the region that could not be censored. China, which closed the region to the world, announced after the 5 July events that it would execute the Uyghurs it found responsible for the riots and executed 196 Uyghurs with firing squads.
China manipulates the world public opinion using its political and economic power, and defines events occurring in East Turkistan as its internal affairs. However, East Turkistan is occupied by China; people of East Turkistan are subjected to policies of ethnic and religious assimilation. China will continue to employ arbitrary policies as long as no voice is raised against this slaughter; a country will be exterminated before the eyes of the world and East Turkistan will face mass massacres.
Today we urge the world to show necessary sensitivity over this issue on the second anniversary of the events to advocate rights of hundreds of Uyghurs who were arrested in July 2009 and unjustly executed afterwards.
