Alkarama participated in the opening of the World Forum of the People of East Turkestan in Istanbul, which is being held for three days and aims to commemorate the struggles of the East Turkestan Uyghur people against the Chinese occupation, with the participation of delegations from all over the world.
The cause of East Turkestan is one of the forgotten humanitarian causes, and East Turkestan is located in the center of Central Asia, where the Uyghur people, one of the Turkic peoples, live, and the Chinese authorities call it "Xinjiang", which means "new land", to give people the illusion that it is just an uninhabited area.
China has committed numerous massacres and forced displacements and has practiced the worst forms of persecution against the Muslim people of Turkestan. The authorities have abolished the Arabic script used by Muslims for the past thousand years and destroyed 730,000 Arabic-language books, including copies of the Holy Qur'an. In recent years, the Chinese authorities have detained more than one million Muslims (mostly Uyghurs) in secret detention camps for cultural rehabilitation and political indoctrination, i.e., to erase their Islamic affiliation.
Activity of Alkarma
Alkarama has repeatedly highlighted the plight of Uyghurs, filing several complaints about activists arrested in Arab countries and warning of the risks of deportation to China.
On February 2, 2016, Alkarama sent an urgent appeal to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues, asking her to urge UAE authorities not to deport two Uyghur Muslims who face the death penalty if extradited to China: Shemsi Ahmed Abdumijit and Wumaier Jiang Aikemilai.
Previously, in 2009, Alkarama brought to the United Nations the case of two Uyghurs, Abdullah Salim Salim, 35, and Akbar Omar, 33, who were also arrested in the UAE, sentenced to prison on terrorism charges, and then extradited to China, where they were convicted of terrorism and executed.
On January 13, 2022, Alkarama wrote to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture asking him to urgently intervene with the Saudi authorities to urge them not to extradite to China Mr. Waili Aimoudoula and his companion Mr. Ruze Nuermaimaiti, members of the Uyghur Muslim minority, who were arrested by Saudi police in Mecca on November 20, 2020.
Alkarama will continue to defend the rights of the Uyghur Muslim minority in China until they realize their rights under international human rights law.