Author: Chin@Strategy

Robert Silvers has served as undersecretary for strategy, policy and plans at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, since 2021. In early March, he met with members of the Uyghur diaspora community in northern Virginia to discuss the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act and the Chinese government’s transnational repression of Uyghurs abroad. In an interview with RFA Uyghur Service Director Alim Seytoff, Silvers discussed how the DHS is enforcing the act, signed into law in December 2021. The law prohibits imports of raw material and products or components…

While global leaders from U.S. President Joe Biden to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan issued well wishes to the more than 1.8 billion Muslims worldwide at the start of Ramadan this week, China’s president remained silent. Xi Jinping failed to acknowledge Ramadan, one of the most sacred times for Muslims, despite the 11 million-strong mostly Muslim Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples who live in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, as well as the roughly 7 million other Muslims in China. Chinese authorities have cracked down…

After fleeing China’s persecution and entering Thailand 10 years ago, more than 40 Uyghurs remain incarcerated in overcrowded detention centers for illegal entry without knowing their fate, their families and rights groups said at a weekend seminar. They are among more than 500 Uyghurs who fled China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region to Southeast Asian countries, according to Thai officials and NGOs. They hoped to be resettled in Turkey via Malaysia but only about 100 made their way through the red tape and intransigence of officials. During the exodus from late…

A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers has called on the Biden administration to press China harder over the jailing of Uyghur activists and to focus on securing the release of four high-profile prisoners. In a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.N. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the 43 lawmakers said they were “grateful” to see the United States press China over its treatment of Uyghurs at the recent U.N. human rights review, but wanted more pressure. China on Jan. 23 appeared before the U.N. Human Rights Council for a…

Two members of the U.S. Congress have sent a letter urging Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to ban American citizens from traveling China’s far-western region of Xinjiang so as not to “perpetuate and conceal atrocity crimes” that China is committing against Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities living there. “​​American citizens and permanent residents, companies, and other entities should be warned about the risk of enabling atrocity crimes if they participate in tourism to the XUAR,” Rep. Chris Smith and Sen. Jeff Merkley, co-chairs of the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China,…

The European Parliament and the European Union Council on Tuesday reached an provisional agreement that outlines new rules banning products made with forced labor. But an expert told Radio Free Asia the rules would be hard to enforce in Xinjiang – where thousands of Uyghurs are engaged in forced labor – because it places the burden of proof on the EU rather than on China or Chinese companies. Since 2017, China has imprisoned an estimated 1.8 million Uyghurs in “re-education camps,” where they receive training in various skills and are…

The United Nations human rights chief on Monday urged China to carry out recommendations from his office to protect human rights in Tibet, Xinjiang and across the country – but activists criticized his comments as weak and not backed up by action. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk made the comments on China while delivering an address to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, updating its members on an array of themes and country situations. Türk’s predecessor, Michelle Bachelet, issued a report in August 2022 that found that…

An alleged spy for China living in Istanbul evaded detection by Turkish authorities for years, Sadiq Memeteziz’s undercover work taking him to Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Syria and Xinjiang in China’s far-west, Turkish media reports said, citing official documents. Memeteziz, or Shadeke Maimaitiaizazi in Chinese, was one of six arrested on Feb. 20 for allegedly spying for China, Turkey’s Habertürk newspaper and TV channel said Wednesday. Habertürk revealed the identities of four the six men arrested earlier this week, indicating they met with Chinese intelligence officials in Saudi Arabia. …

A Uyghur activist disrupted a Lunar New Year event hosted by the Chinese Embassy in the Netherlands on Saturday, storming on stage and shouting “China, stop genocide!” before organizers subdued him, a video on social media shows. The activist, Abdulrahman Uyghur, posted a video of the protest on his Facebook page, writing that he held a sign saying, “East Turkistan is not part of China!,” the Uyghurs’ preferred name for their homeland, which China calls Xinjiang.  He said the moment he disrupted the event was at the end, when Chinese…

A 96-year-old Uyghur religious leader who was arrested in 2017 has died in prison, and authorities did not turn his body over to his family, his granddaughter told Radio Free Asia. Abidin Damollam was an imam who served in a mosque in Qayraq village in Atush (in Chinese Atushi), the capital of the Qizilsu Kyrgyz Autonomous Prefecture in northwestern Xinjiang. He was arrested in June 2017 on charges of “promoting religious extremism” and sentenced to nine years in prison.  His granddaughter Mariya Muhemmed, who lives in the United States, told…