Press Release – For immediate Release
30 August 2026 | World Uyghur Congress
The World Uyghur Congress (WUC) marks the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances. On this day, we remember all persons worldwide who have been forcibly disappeared at the hands of oppressive regimes, their affiliated police or military personnel, or any other party who has used this practice as a tool for repression.
The practice of enforced disappearances constitutes a serious human rights violation that cannot be justified by any circumstance, regardless of its exceptionality. In April and May of 2017, Uyghurs living outside China started losing contact with family members still living in East Turkistan. It soon became apparent that Uyghurs were being rounded up by Chinese police and placed into large scale internment camps where they are subjected to political indoctrination, torture and miserable conditions. Now, almost every family in the Uyghur diaspora has a missing relative or loved one.
Those detained in the camps have effectively disappeared, as they are not allowed any contact with anyone outside the camps and have no access to judicial or legal remedies. They were not provided with a warrant or given a trial before their forced detention. No formal charges have been levied against any of them and they are being held for unspecified periods of time. The camps therefore constitute one of the largest cases of state-sponsored enforced disappearances and arbitrary detention in modern human history. The Chinese government has denied the existence of the camps, making it nearly impossible for Uyghurs living outside East Turkistan to know if their detained friends and family members are still alive. This has deeply impacted the Uyghur community, who are desperate for news of their loved ones and are frustrated by their inability to save them.
In the last few years, UN experts highlighted many individual cases of disappeared Uyghurs, including Tashpolat Tiyip, Ekber Asat, Hushtar Isa, Yalqun Isa, Dr. Gulshan Abbas, Ilham Tohti, Qurban Mamut and Dr. Rahila Dawut. Despite many attempts by UN special rapporteurs and working groups to receive information on the whereabouts of those disappeared, the Chinese government has consistently denied to provide any information, including during the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) and other treaty body reviews.
The WUC would also like to express its deep concern for the many disappearances of Uyghur refugees and asylum seekers who have been forcibly returned to China. It has been a repeated and continuous practice by Chinese authorities to silence those who sought to flee oppression to seek a better life.
China has tried to expand its repressive regime abroad, there have been multiple occasions whereby Uyghur refugees or asylum seekers have been forcibly returned after Chinese pressure on a foreign government. In the past 15 years alone, over 300 Uyghurs have been forcibly returned from 16 different countries and have disappeared on their return.
In December 2009, 22 Uyghurs were deported back to China from Cambodia, and disappeared; in July 2015, 109 Uyghurs were handed to the Chinese government by the Thai authorities and disappeared; in July 2017, over twenty Uyghur students in Egypt were deported back to China and disappeared. In April 2018, a young 22-year-old Uyghur asylum seeker in Germany was mistakenly returned to China and has not been heard from since. Attempts from his lawyer and the German government have proved unsuccessful. More recently, in February 2025, 40 Uyghurs were deported from Thailand, with their families losing complete contact with them. All these individuals were, in practice, forcibly disappeared.
We call on the Chinese government to break the cycle of silence and impunity on these cases. Every Uyghur family living abroad has in the past years suffered being unaware of the whereabouts of their relatives, losing all contact with them. We also call on the Chinese government to respond to the pending cases submitted to the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances and other UN e.
