Justice For All’s Save Uyghur Campaign Condemns Exploitation of American Children in CCP Propaganda Tour of Occupied East Turkistan

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON, D.C. (July 15, 2026)

Justice For All’s Save Uyghur campaign strongly condemns the ongoing visit of the Utah-based One Voice Children’s Choir to Chinese-occupied East Turkistan, which is being systematically used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as a propaganda tool to whitewash ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity.

The choir, consisting of 40 young members, arrived on July 12 for a nine-day tour of Urumchi and Korla and other parts of East Turkistan. While the CCP frames the event as a “China-US Youth Exchange Initiative” to “foster friendship,” the itinerary, which includes visits to a 5G smart factory and a smart cotton farm, is a transparent effort to promote a false narrative of stability and development. These sites are at the heart of state-led forced labor and the “arbitrary and discriminatory detention” of Uyghurs and other Turkic groups.

This trip is a classic propaganda tour, conducted along prearranged routes under official guidance to present a “rounded account” that hides the reality of mass detention centers and cultural assimilation. By showcasing a “modernized” cotton industry, the CCP is attempting to use American children to rebut the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) and findings by the United Nations that acts in the region may constitute crimes against humanity.

Arslan Hidayat, Team Lead for the Save Uyghur Campaign, said: “It is sick and morally reprehensible for the Chinese government to use innocent children as props in a state-managed propaganda performance. While these American teens are directed to sing songs of friendship in Urumchi, millions of Uyghurs are silenced by arbitrary detention, family separation, and the destruction of their religious and cultural identity. This is not a cultural exchange, it is a calculated information-management strategy designed to distract from a genocide. Using the voices of children to mask the screams of a persecuted people is a new low for the CCP’s international image-management.”

The Save Uyghur campaign calls on the organizers of the One Voice Children’s Choir and all international participants to recognize that their presence is being weaponized to legitimize a regime accused of large-scale arbitrary detention, forced labor, and policies of cultural assimilation. Music should never be used as a bridge to overlook the industrial-scale suffering of the Uyghur people.

Contact: Arslan Hidayat, arslan@justiceforall.org  Phone: 202-908-JUST

Website: https://www.justiceforall.org

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