Abdurehim Gheni (right) is seen here with US Ambassador to the Netherlands Pete Hoekstra on Amsterdam's Dam Square, July 12, 2020. An ethnic Uyghur, Gheni began staging weekly one-man demonstrations in the square in June 2018 over Beijing's repressive policies against Uyghurs and calling on China's government to provide him with information on the whereabouts of his 19 missing relatives, whom he last saw in 2014. (Photo: Abdurehim Gheni/ rfa.org)
The Uyghur people possess the same fundamental right to exist and preserve their identity as any other nation on earth
Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented — Elie Wiesel
On July 6 this year, the UN General Assembly held a dedicated dialogue at its New York headquarters on the theme of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P).
According to this principle, if a state commits genocide against its own citizens, the international community is morally obligated to intervene.
During this three-hour session, where representatives from approximately 40 nations and organizations spoke, crises and atrocities in Sudan, Palestine, Ukraine, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, and Syria were formally debated.
Yet, the ongoing Uyghur genocide in East Turkistan — under Chinese occupation and called the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region by Beijing — was met with absolute, unyielding silence. Not a single word was uttered.
This omission occurred despite the fact that the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) published a formal assessment report on Aug. 31, 2022, explicitly stating that China's crackdown on Uyghurs may constitute crimes against humanity.
Armed with their own official findings and empirical evidence, global delegates nonetheless chose silence, paralyzed by China's economic and political leverage.
World leaders possess the courage to deliver speeches in cemeteries for deceased Jews and Bosnians, but succumb to fear when facing China, opting for silence inside UN halls rather than defending millions of living Uyghurs.
The Uyghur people possess the same fundamental right to exist and preserve their identity as any other nation on earth.
Retaliatory terror and indomitable Uyghur courage
These summits and proclamations raise a bitter question: Why are the living witnesses of the ongoing Uyghur genocide systematically excluded from high-level international forums designed to prevent mass atrocities?
Since 2017, nineteen members of my own family have been abducted and subjected to severe persecution by Chinese authorities. The harrowing plight inflicted upon my family is a living microcosm of the broader genocide targeting millions of Uyghurs.
In July 2024, when I was invited to testify against Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the International Court of the Citizens of the World in The Hague, the Chinese government resorted to overt blackmail to silence me.
They pulled my father and brother out of a concentration camp, forcing them to call me to issue direct threats. When intimidation failed to stop me, they sent me agonizing video footage of my father struggling for his life on his deathbed, attempting to break me psychologically.
However, I refused to bow to this ruthless psychological warfare. Instead of retreating, I presented the very video sent to intimidate me as the most damning piece of criminal evidence inside the courtroom.
When that footage played, the entire judicial panel rose to their feet in shock at China's cruelty, expressing their profound respect for my resolve.
In a brutal act of retaliation, the Chinese government tortured my father to death within the camp system. This retaliatory murder and my father's death in custody were later independently investigated, verified, and exposed to the world through the rigorous reporting of Shohret Hoshur, a journalist for Radio Free Asia (RFA).
The international community's systematic exclusion of living witnesses like myself from official UN debates is born out of a fear of confronting China with the undeniable facts of its crimes. The moment we step into those assembly halls, the utter worthlessness of their hollow Never Again slogans in saving living human beings is laid bare before the world.
East Turkistan today: A globally recognized genocide
Today, China is executing the most sophisticated Silent Genocide of the 21st century in East Turkistan, defying every post-WWII human rights framework. The legal parameters of China's crimes have been firmly established:
- The Citizen's Court Arrest Warrant for Xi Jinping: On July 12, 2024, the International Court of the Citizens of the World, presided over by Chief Judge Zak Yacoob, issued a formal arrest warrant for Chinese President Xi Jinping. Grounded in the framework of the Rome Statute, the court indicted him on 11 counts of international crimes, including genocide and crimes against humanity in East Turkistan.
- Parliamentary Genocide Declarations: On June 9, 2022, the European Parliament adopted a landmark resolution declaring that China's actions in East Turkistan amount to crimes against humanity and carry a serious risk of genocide. Furthermore, the parliaments of more than 10 democratic nations — including the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and France — have officially recognized China's atrocities as a genocide.
Yet, the geopolitical reality remains unchanged. The world remains ensnared in the supply chains of Chinese forced labor and trapped by Economic Opportunism. Rather than enforcing concrete punitive measures to halt an active genocide, Western nations prefer to mask their contemporary silence behind diplomatic statements written in black ink on empty white paper.
Severed lifelines in a connected era
Modern civilization has advanced to a point where a single phone call can connect individuals across hemispheres within seconds. The entire world is hyper-connected, yet we — the Uyghurs — have been entirely severed from our homelands and families. Years have dissolved into total silence, with no news of my loved ones. To eradicate the roots of an entire nation, China has constructed the most ruthless digital dystopia and open-air prison in human history.
The international community's eloquent remembrance of past genocides does nothing to stop the crimes being perpetrated today.
The commemoration of mass atrocities must stop serving as a political theater for states to absolve their conscience. Instead, it must transform into active resistance against ongoing injustice — a realization of the legal Responsibility to Protect that forcefully halts the hand of the oppressor.
If the world fails to confront China today, it will inevitably be forced to establish an Uyghur Genocide Remembrance Day tomorrow, shedding hypocritical tears on yet another future stage. We do not need another day of mourning for the dead; we need the immediate, genuine human will to save the living today.
As the adage warns, Belated regret is an enemy to oneself. The world will eventually recognize the profound weight of Martin Luther King Jr.'s words, but by then, it will be catastrophically too late:
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
*The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.
