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World Uyghur Congress Newsletter No.10 Published: 10 May 2011

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World Uyghur Congress Newsletter No.10 Published: 10 May 2011 World Uyghur Congress Newsletter No.10 Published: 10 May 2011 Newsletter No.10 May 2011 Official Website of the WUC | Unsubscribe | Subscribe | Older Editions | PDF Version Conference on the future of the Uyghurs in East Turkestan TOP STORY International Conference: The Future of the Uyghur People in East Turkestan FEATURED ARTICLES Uyghur Leaders Bared from Travel High Court turns down Uyghur Case for U.S. resettlement MEDIA WORK WUC on Facebook and Twitter / New Design Newsletter Interview with Alim Seystoff at Voice of America WUC PR World Press Freedom Day WUC Congratulates Dr. Lobsang Sangay PAST EVENTS 21st Anniversary of the Baren Massacre Second Grand Meeting of Friendship and Solidarity of Uyghur Youth, Sweden 7th General Assembly of the Kyrgyzstan Uyghur Union (Ittipak) Uyghur Event in Australia Conference on East Turkestan in Turkey U.S. - China Human Rights Dialogue UPCOMING EVENTS 17th session of the UN Human Rights Council Food and Culture from East Turkestan HIGHLIGHTED MEDIA ARTICLES AND REPORTS ON UYGHUR RELATED ISSUES US State Department: 2010 Human Rights Report UN Rights Panel Raps China Over 'Disappeared' Freedom House Report ""Freedom on the Net 2011" U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) 2011 Annual Report MORE MEDIA ARTICLES 1 / 10 www.uyghurcongress.org World Uyghur Congress Newsletter No.10 Published: 10 May 2011 TOP STORY International Conference: The Future of the Uyghur People in East Turkestan From May 2-8, 2011 the international conference The Future of Uyghur People in East Turkestan co-sponsored by Freedom House, World Uyghur Congress (WUC), Uyghur American Association (UAA) and the International Uyghur Human Rights and Democracy Foundation (IUHRDF), took place in Washington, D.C. The opening ceremony of the conference was held at the U.S. Capitol Building and was opened with a speech by WUC President and longstanding Uyghur human rights activist Rebiya Kadeer . Many distinguished speakers addressed the audience: Hon. Frank R. Wolf (U.S. Congressman) Hon. Jim McGovern (U.S. Congressman) Hon. Keith Ellison (U.S. Congressman)- (Written statement) Mr. Carl Gershman (President, National Endowment for Democracy) Dr. Gunawardena-Vaughn (Director of the International Religious Freedom Consortium and the Southeast Asia Program, Freedom House) Ms. Louisa Coan Greve (Vice President, National Endowment for Democracy) Mr. Randall Shriver (Former Assistant Secretary of State) T. Kumar (Advocacy Director for Asia and the Pacific, Amnesty International USA) Dr. Sophie Richardson (Advocacy Director, Human Rights Watch, Asia Division) Hon. Hans Hogrefe (Chief Policy Officer and Washington Office Director of Physicians for Human Rights) Dr. Dru Gladney (Professor at Pomona College at Claremont, CA) The rest of the conference took place at the Holiday Inn, Leesburg, and around 150 Uyghur delegates (both members of the WUC and non-WUC affiliated Uyghur community leaders and intellectuals) from around the world participated. It was an internal conference for the Uyghur Diaspora community and its main goal was to provide a constructive forum for Uyghur leaders from around the world to discuss the ongoing violations of civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights suffered by the Uyghur people in East Turkestan. The delegates also discussed the situation of Uyghur refugees around the world in order to find effective solutions to provide legal and moral assistance and support. The delegates also explored common strategies, effective political platforms, and future steps. Lectures on the following topics were given during the conference: 1. East Turkestan & Uyghur Issues; Current Situation & Future Prospects 2. The Role of Islam in East Turkestan Struggle 3. The Forecast of Importance of Strengthening the East Turkestan Cause in the Asian Region 4. The Role of Young Generation in the Cause of East Turkestan Struggle 5. Refugee Issues; the Existing Predicament & the Better Working Mechanism 6. The Importance of Publicity & Propaganda Settings 7. Establishing Reliable & Sustainable Financial Resources for the Long Term Uyghur Struggle Causes 8. Interim, Midterm & Long- Term Strategies for the Future of East Turkestan 9. Chinese “Autonomy” Policy in East Turkestan; Characteristics, Implications & Consequences 10. Historical Uyghur Independent States; the Principles in the Frameworks of History, International Politics, International Law 11. A Proposal of Constructing East Turkestan Federal Autonomous Republic 12. Self-Determination & East Turkestan Issues A part from that, the following group discussions took place: 1. The Goal of Uyghur Political Movement 2. The Future Prospects of Establishing a Well Founded Youth Network in East Turkistan Cause 3. Strengthening the East Turkistan/ Uyghur Cause in Muslim States, Russia & Japan; Future Thoughts 4. Uyghur Refugees: How to Improve the Assistance? 5. Islam & Its Role in East Turkistan Cause 6. Strengthening the Information exchange & other types of Social Network 7. Establishing Reliable & Sustainable Financial Resources for the Long Term Uyghur Struggle Causes A final decision on the future path of the Uyghur cause was taken by the participants. They decided to continue seeking the right to self-determination for the people in East Turkestan. Other options—autonomy or outright independence—were rejected by the seven-day "East Turkestan Uyghur Summit: The Future of Uyghur People in East Turkestan." Related articles: 海 外维吾尔人在 华盛顿举行会议 (Overseas Uyghurs Meet in D.C.) BBC, 03 May 2011 海外维吾尔人国际会议在华盛顿召开 (Overseas Uighur international conference held in Washington) Deutsche Welle, 04 May 2011 维吾尔人华 盛顿召开国际会议 (Uyghurs held an international conference in Washington) VOA, 03 May 2011 Uyghurs Push Self-Determination RFA, 10 May 2011 Video of the Opening Ceremony of the Uyghur Conference in Washington DC. Video of the demonstration in front of the Chinese embassy in Washington DC on 3 May 2011. 2 / 10 www.uyghurcongress.org World Uyghur Congress Newsletter No.10 Published: 10 May 2011 back to top FEATURED ARTICLES World Uyghur Congress Strongly Protests Travel Refusal for Uyghur Exile Leaders from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan WUC Press Release , 3 May 2011 The World Uyghur Congress (WUC) strongly protests authorities’ actions to prevent five Uyghur exile leaders from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan from participating in an international conference in Washington, DC. The Uyghur leaders planned to attend the international conference ”The Future of the Uyghurs in East Turkestan” , held 2 – 8 May 2011, which is co-sponsored by Freedom House, WUC, the Uyghur American Association (UAA) and the International Uyghur Human Rights and Democracy Foundation (IUHRDF). In Kazakhstan, airport authorities blocked WUC Vice President Kahriman Ghojamberdi from getting on the plane. Ghojamberdi was stopped by customs officials at the Almaty airport on Sunday and told that his passport was not valid for travel. Ghojamberdi holds both a valid passport and a valid U.S. visa, but when he handed his passport to the customs officer, he returned the passport five minutes later, saying that Ghojamberdi will not be allowed to travel with this passport, because two pages were “ripped out”. However, the pages had been missing from his passport earlier and he had used the same passport for several trips to Europe and the U.S. In addition, in the weeks prior to the conference, several other Uyghur activists had been pressured by Kazakh authorities to not attend the conference. Three Uyghur artists whose visas were already approved gave up their plans to attend because of threats by police. In Kyrgyzstan, four Uyghur activists were prevented from travelling to the U.S. on Sunday. Dilmurat Akberov , former president of the Uyhgur Society of the Kyrgyz Republic “Ittipak”, who holds a position in a local government, and Ruzi Muhammed Abdulbakiev , a former member of the WUC Steering Committee, were asked by Kyrgyz authorities to refrain from travelling to the U.S., arguing that this trip would “harm Sino-Kyrgyz relations.” In addition, Hasyethan Tohtahonova and Elvaskhan Saloi-Akhunov were taken off of the airplane by police on Sunday. The WUC believes that the men were prevented from travelling due to Chinese pressure. Central Asian countries are under strong influence from China, especially since the establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, along with Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and China, are members of the regional security grouping, in which Beijing wields pre-eminent influence. A recent report released by Human Rights in China (HRIC) entitled “Compromise of Human Rights Under Cover of Counter-Terrorism – Human Rights in China Releases a Whitepaper on the Shanghai Cooperation Organization” affirms that the SCO is misused by the Chinese government to “adopt China’s domestic approach to counter-terrorism and expand it throughout Central Asia,” and concludes that “the Chinese government and other SCO member states have thus used ‘counter- terrorism’ measures as a tool to secure domestic ‘social stability,’ often at the expense of human rights”. The report also notes that “the climate of fear maintained through SCO joint exercises in targeted regions thus has broad potential to intimidate and compromise domestic populations, particularly ethnic groups such as Uyghurs, by deterring them from exercising their legitimate rights, including freedoms of association, expression, and religion – activities that officials regularly characterize as ‘separatism’
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