Statement on the 17th Anniversary of the July 5, 2009 Urumchi Massacre

Seventeen years ago, the streets of Urumchi became the site of one of the darkest days in modern Uyghur history. We remember the victims and stand with the survivors and their families who are still waiting for answers. Today, we renew our commitment to justice, accountability, and the basic rights of the Uyghur people.

July 5, 2009, was a turning point. What began as peaceful demonstrations by Uyghurs demanding justice and accountability was met with a brutal crackdown by the Chinese government, as countless Uyghurs were killed or disappeared. In the weeks that followed came mass arrests, torture, enforced disappearances, and a sweeping wave of repression. Seventeen years later, Beijing has still not provided a transparent account of the victims, nor has it allowed any independent international investigation.

Instead of addressing the grievances that drove people into the streets, the Chinese government escalated their actions. East Turkistan became a testing ground for one of the most sophisticated surveillance states the world has ever seen. Millions of Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples have lived under constant digital monitoring, arbitrary detention, forced family separation, restrictions on their faith, forced labour, and intrusive state control over nearly every part of daily life.

From 2017 onward, these policies hardened into a systematic campaign of mass internment. More than a million Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples were arbitrarily detained in camps where credible evidence has documented political indoctrination, torture, sexual violence, forced sterilization, and other grave abuses. Governments, parliaments, legal experts, and independent tribunals have concluded that these acts amount to genocide and crimes against humanity.

Today, that campaign has entered a new and dangerous phase. The recently adopted Ethnic Unity Law on July 1st, 2026, is an effort to turn assimilation into law. By elevating “ethnic unity” and loyalty to the state above the preservation of distinct identities, languages, religions, and cultures, the law gives legal cover to policies designed to erase the identity of the Uyghur people and other Indigenous peoples living under the Chinese Communist Party.

The goal is no longer to silence dissent. It is to eliminate the conditions that allow Uyghurs to exist as a distinct people. Through restrictions on language, religion, education, culture, family life, and community institutions, the Chinese government is working to replace diversity with enforced conformity. These policies put the very survival of the Uyghur people, as a nation with our own history, language, culture, and identity at risk.

Seventeen years after the Urumchi Massacre, impunity continues to fuel further abuse. Remembrance cannot become a substitute for action. Governments must strengthen coordinated measures to hold perpetrators accountable — through targeted sanctions, import bans on goods tied to forced labour, legal accountability mechanisms, and support for international investigations. Businesses must ensure their supply chains are free of forced labour. International institutions must keep documenting these abuses and responding to them.

As we remember the victims of July 5, 2009, we also hold on to a deeper truth: the truth cannot be erased, justice cannot be silenced, and the dignity of the Uyghur people cannot be extinguished. After years of persecution, the resilience of the Uyghur people endures.

On this anniversary, we call on democratic governments, international organizations, and civil society to stand firmly with the Uyghur people in defending universal human rights, preserving Uyghur identity, and ensuring that those responsible for genocide and crimes against humanity are held to account.