Justice For All’s Save Uyghur Campaign Commemorates 77 Years of CCP Illegal Occupation of East Turkistan

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON, D.C. (September 30, 2026)

On October 1, 2026, marking 77 years since Mao Zedong proclaimed the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in Beijing, Justice For All’s Save Uyghur Campaign commemorates the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) illegal military occupation and colonization of East Turkistan that occurred later that month. With Soviet backing, Chinese communist forces launched a belligerent armed invasion of East Turkistan in October 1949. By December 22, 1949, the independent East Turkistan Republic was overthrown and illegally annexed into the PRC. During the initial years of military occupation between 1949 and 1954, People’s Liberation Army forces killed hundreds of thousands of East Turkistanis who resisted Chinese rule.

East Turkistan possesses a documented history of statehood, including the first and second East Turkistan Republics established in 1933 and 1944. The Chinese colonial term “Xinjiang,” which translates to “New Territory” or “New Frontier,” was forcibly imposed following the Manchu Qing invasion in 1884, a designation rejected by the native Turkic population. Prior to the 1949 invasion, Soviet intelligence operatives assassinated core leaders of the East Turkistan Republic in late August and September 1949, undermining local governance ahead of Chinese military entry. Under international law, East Turkistan remains an illegally occupied country, and its forced incorporation into the PRC constitutes an international conflict rather than an internal Chinese matter.

“For 77 years, the Chinese Communist Party has attempted to erase the sovereignty, culture and identity of East Turkistan through military occupation, state-directed colonization and mass atrocity,” stated Arslan Hidayat, Save Uyghur Team Lead at Justice For All. “Today, as Beijing celebrates its national day, millions of Uyghurs, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz remain interned in concentration camps, subjected to forced sterilizations, forced labor and systematic destruction. Silence and diplomatic hesitation only embolden Beijing’s ambition to turn East Turkistan into an eternal colony. The international community must move beyond symbolic gestures, recognize East Turkistan as an occupied nation and pursue legal accountability against CCP officials at the International Criminal Court.”

Justice For All’s Save Uyghur Campaign presents five key policy demands to international governments and international institutions:

1. Formally recognize East Turkistan as an illegally occupied country under international law.
2. Reject Chinese colonial terminology (“Xinjiang”) in official diplomacy and media, adopting the proper name, East Turkistan.
3. Initiate and support legal proceedings against Chinese state officials at the International Criminal Court (ICC) and International Court of Justice (ICJ).
4. Enforce comprehensive import bans on goods produced through forced labor and impose sanctions on the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) and affiliated corporate entities.
5. Investigate and dismantle Chinese transnational repression and covert intelligence operations targeting East Turkistani diaspora activists abroad.

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

Website: https://www.justiceforall.org/save-uighur/

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