Justice For All’s Save Uyghur Campaign Commemorates the 16th Anniversary of the July 5th Urumchi Massacre

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Washington, D.C  – July 3, 2025

July 5th marks 16 years since the July Urumchi Massacre, when Chinese forces brutally cracked down on peaceful Uyghur demonstrators in the city of Urumchi in Chinese-occupied East Turkistan.  Justice For All’s Save Uyghur Campaign solemnly commemorates this anniversary and calls for renewed, urgent global action against the Chinese Communist Party’s ongoing crimes, crimes that continue to amount to genocide.

In 2009, thousands of Uyghurs took to the streets of Urumchi, demanding justice for the killing of Uyghur workers in Guangdong Province. What followed was a wave of state-sponsored violence that left hundreds dead, thousands imprisoned or disappeared, and a community shattered. The massacre was not an isolated event, it was a clear sign of Beijing’s intent to crush any form of Uyghur resistance and erase their existence as a distinct people.

Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid, President of Justice For All, stated, “The legacy of July 5 is not only about the bloodshed of that day, but about the silence that followed. The world looked away then, and it’s still looking away now. That silence enables genocide. We call on every conscience to break it.”

Arslan Hidayat, Lead of the Save Uyghur campaign, added, “We don’t gather each year just to remember the martyred, we gather to remind the living. The same system that ordered the crackdown in Urumchi continues to run internment camps, separate children from families, and suffocate Uyghur culture. Commemoration must lead to action. The world cannot say it didn’t know.”

As we remember those killed, disappeared, and silenced in the aftermath of July 5, 2009, Justice For All renews its call for concrete measures to hold the CCP accountable. We urge governments, human rights institutions, and civil society to support policies that pressure China to end its repression, ensure justice for victims, and uphold the rights of the Uyghur people.

Justice will not come from remembrance alone, it must be fought for. Sixteen years on, the fight continues.

Contact Information: Hena Zuberi, Director Of Advocacy
Email: hena@justiceforall.org.  Phone: 202-908-JUST
Website: https://www.justiceforall.org/save-uighur/