On November 24, 2022, a deadly fire in Xinjiang China’s residential area led to deaths of at least 44 Uyghurs including elderly and children living in buildings. However, this was not only a fire, but one of the numerous human rights violations and discriminatory policies of the Chinese government against Uyghurs. The Chinese government has oppressed Uyghurs and incarcerated more than 1.8 million Uyghur Muslims in concentration camps, prisons, and forced labor under the guise of combating extremism, terrorism, and separatism. Since 2017, Chinese repression of Uyghurs has intensified substantially on an unprecedented scale, with Chinese party officials sleeping in the beds of Uyghur families, cultural destruction, the demolishing of mosques and muslim cemeteries, the banning of the Uyghur language, arbitrary detention and forced disappearance, forced organ harvesting, and sterilization, all of which have amounted to genocide. 

Thus, we want to push the US Congress to:

Having Uyghur Rights Policy Act  passed in the Senate. This bill supports the human rights of Uyghurs and members of other minority groups residing primarily in Xinjiang and safeguard their distinct identity.

Having Uyghur Human Rights Protection Act, passed in Congress. This act will allow “Uyghurs and members of other predominantly Turkic or Muslim ethnic groups” to be prioritized as refugees.