Uyghur Human Rights Project

📖 New #UyghurReader – A biweekly roundup of essential reporting and analysis on the Uyghur crisis, curated by UHRP staff. Issue 27: June 15 – July 8, 2026 🏔️ Tourism Whitewashing Abuses: Beijing is using tourism, pop culture, and curated ethnic experiences to sell a softer image of East Turkistan amid pervasive surveillance, heightened security, and policies institutionalizing assimilation, writes Colum Murphy for Bloomberg News. ⚖️ Codifying Assimilation: China’s new “Ethnic Unity” law turns decades of assimilation in East Turkistan into national law. Ablet Turdi (Uyghur Rights Monitor) examines how Mandarin-only education and boarding schools are undermining the transmission of Uyghur language and identity. 🕯️ Alienation at Home: Statelessness is not always the loss of citizenship – it can be the slow erosion of belonging, writes Asiye Uyghur for Global Voices, reflecting on life in the Uyghur homeland as mass surveillance, family separation, and cultural suppression intensified. 🌍 Sustaining Identity Under Threat: As Beijing dismantles Uyghur language, culture, and family life, preserving identity increasingly falls to the diaspora. In The New York Times, Uyghur exile Tahir Imin reflects on family separation and the struggle to sustain Uyghur language, literature, and traditions under transnational repression. 🇨🇳 "Unity" Hides Control: China’s new ethnic unity law uses language of "unity" and "progress" to expand state control and may provide legal cover for transnational repression through Article 63, warns Kyinzom D. (Amnesty International Australia). 🔎 Read the full Uyghur Reader: https://lnkd.in/gtnXHxZV

✍ New op-ed by UHRP's Elijah Pockell-Wilson for Australian Strategic Policy Institute on his research exposing Australia's vulnerability to imports linked to Uyghur forced labor: "If Australia doesn't strengthen its own laws, goods facing tougher scrutiny in the US and Europe may be redirected onto Australian shelves." https://lnkd.in/gQQ39Gvc

✍ Op-ed by Henryk Szadziewski, PhD in Diplomat Media Inc. – China’s ‘Ethnic Unity’ Cup: Football and Assimilation in the Uyghur Region A football tournament is China’s latest propaganda campaign to whitewash its abuses of Uyghur people – and deconstruct Uyghur identity in favor of Chinese “unity.” Read more ⬇️ https://lnkd.in/gTWc-7uB

📣 Today, June 26, is the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. We honor the bravery of survivors everywhere, including Uyghur camp survivors who have testified to physical and psychological torture in China’s detention system. The Chinese government must not be allowed to deny or erase survivors’ accounts. ➡️ Qalbinur Sidiq, who was coerced into worked inside one of the mass detention camps for Uyghurs, described torture, humiliation, and forced sterilization of detainees: “Sometimes I would hear screams and cries for help from other rooms.” (https://lnkd.in/gxURQKXS) ➡️ Mihrigul Tursun, a Uyghur camp survivor, told reporters: “I thought that I would rather die than go through this torture and begged them to kill me.” (https://lnkd.in/gcSB-ATm) We also remain deeply concerned for Uyghurs forcibly returned to China, including the 40 Uyghur men deported by Thailand in 2025 despite grave fears of torture, disappearance, and other serious abuses. UN experts warned that their deportation exposed them to “enforced disappearance, torture and arbitrary deprivation of life.” (https://lnkd.in/gHG3m655) China has ratified the Convention Against Torture, which requires State Parties to take effective measures to prevent acts of torture. Yet torture, cruel and degrading treatment, and deaths in custody continue. Today, we call on governments to hold Chinese officials accountable for human rights abuses, including torture.

Far from being eliminated, the risk of Uyghur forced labor in global supply chains is being redistributed, a new report warned Tuesday. Despite heightened scrutiny of high-risk imports through measures such as the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in the United States and the forthcoming Forced Labour Regulation in the European Union, countries without comparable import controls remain exposed to forced labor-tainted goods, the Uyghur Human Rights Project said. Worse, they may attract them. Among the major economies most prone are Australia and Japan, which the Washington-based advocacy group says are “deeply integrated” into Chinese supply chains but lack prohibitions on forced labor imports. Read more: https://lnkd.in/gnCR9T87

📖 New #UyghurReader – A biweekly roundup of essential reporting and analysis on the Uyghur crisis, curated by UHRP staff. Issue 26: June 11, 2026 – June 24, 2026 🇨🇳 Ethnic Unity Law: China's new Ethnic Unity Law claims the power to hold people abroad liable for "undermining ethnic unity" – while rights groups warn this could expand transnational repression of diaspora communities, including Uyghurs (Reuters). 🇨🇦 Forced-Labor Imports: Canada needs stronger forced-labor legislation to prevent imports linked to Uyghur forced labor from entering the market, argue Mehmet Tohti, Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, Sarah Teich, and Charles Burton, writing for The Globe and Mail. ⚖️ Flawed Trial: FIDH - International Federation for Human Rights condemned the death sentence handed down by a Thai court to two Uyghur men convicted in connection with the 2015 Bangkok bombing, citing allegations of serious due process violations. 📡 Exporting Mass Surveillance: China is promoting mass surveillance practices used against Uyghurs as model for other nations to follow, including Afghanistan, warns Tommaso Franco, writing for Fair Observer. 📖 Future Amid Loss: In a moving reflection, Rizwana Ilham writes about growing up in a generation of Uyghurs told they were the future – only to later see their culture and community systematically dismantled (Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization). 🔎 Read the full Uyghur Reader: https://lnkd.in/g4w62XnJ

"Far from being eliminated, the risk of Uyghur forced labor in global supply chains is being redistributed, a new report warned Tuesday. Despite heightened scrutiny of high-risk imports through measures such as the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in the United States and the forthcoming Forced Labour Regulation in the European Union, countries without comparable import controls remain exposed to forced labor-tainted goods, the Uyghur Human Rights Project said. Worse, they may attract them." Jasmin Malik Chua for Sourcing Journal, covering the new UHRP report by Elijah Pockell-Wilson on enforcement gaps. https://lnkd.in/eHGfXGYf

I'm excited to share my first published report: “Redirected Risk: Uyghur Forced Labor in Australia and Japan,” written for the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP). This report looks at how products made with Uyghur forced labor can end up in countries with weaker import controls, even as others crack down. Australia and Japan now have a real chance to close these loopholes and keep these goods out of everyday supply chains. Whether you’re interested in human rights, global trade, or how the products we buy are made, I hope you’ll take a look and share your thoughts. Read the full report here: https://lnkd.in/gfMaY-FU

📝 New UHRP report by Elijah Pockell-Wilson finds that 🇦🇺 Australia and 🇯🇵 Japan remain vulnerable to imports linked to Uyghur forced labor. Forced labor risks are not being eliminated from global supply chains – rather, they are being redistributed to markets that lack effective import controls. “Forced labor does not disappear when one market tries to close its doors,” said report author Elijah Pockell-Wilson. “Without stronger import controls, Australia and Japan risk becoming destination markets for goods made with Uyghur forced labor that other countries are working to block.” Neither Australia’s Modern Slavery Act nor Japan’s human rights supply chain guidelines require companies to demonstrate that imported goods are free from forced labor before entering the market. The report finds that high-risk goods are still entering mid-sized markets: in 2024, Australia imported ~ US$4.82 billion in goods from high-risk sectors associated with Uyghur forced labor, while Japan imported ~ US$6.71 billion. Transparency and guidance alone are insufficient when supply chains involve regions where independent verification is restricted or unreliable. Governments should: ➡️ Adopt forced-labor import bans modeled on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) ➡️ Pair import bans w/ traceability, customs authority, & mandatory due diligence ➡️ Coordinate enforcement across major & mid-sized markets ➡️ Include civil society & affected communities in enforcement 🔗 Read the full report: https://lnkd.in/gki4syfJ

🗣️ Today is #UyghurLanguageDay 🗣️ China’s forced assimilation campaign — forcing children to speak only Chinese, targeting Uyghur language advocates, destroying Uyghur books, and banning Uyghur songs — threatens the survival of the Uyghur language. In a recent Financial Times report by Alison Killing, Uyghur linguist Abduweli Ayup warns that “young children lose their language very quickly.” Family separation and Mandarin-only education are creating a “generational gap,” with many Uyghur children forgetting their language and losing connection to their community. The same report documents the suppression and destruction of Uyghur literature: “There used to be 10 different Uyghur-language publishers, but they have gone,” says anthropologist Rune Steenberg Reyhé. Uyghur books have been “removed from bookstores… they’ve been removed from people’s homes, they’ve been removed from libraries in huge stacks.” Dozens of Uyghur songs, like the beloved folk ballad “Besh pede,” were banned by Chinese authorities, according to The Associated Press reporting by Simina Minstreanu: “[A]uthorities warned residents that those who listened to banned songs, stored them on devices or shared them on social media could face prison. Attendees were also instructed to avoid phrases like 'As-salamu alaykum,' the greeting common among Muslims, and to replace the popular farewell 'Allahqa amanet' — 'May God keep you safe' — with 'May the Communist Party protect you.'" Language is the medium of memory, identity, community, and survival. Amid the Chinese government's attempts at eradication, #UyghurLanguageDay is a powerful symbol of Uyghur resilience. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/eyU445qT https://lnkd.in/eKEGGzxT https://lnkd.in/gyBkkw7g https://lnkd.in/eN5SvEky https://lnkd.in/gsWTDc5z https://lnkd.in/gdAnxWb2