Uyghur campaign: last day (for now)

Today is our last post for now on this successful campaign

August 2026

This is our last post in our current campaign although we will be featuring the plight of the Uyghurs in future posts. The campaign has had some successes and the organiser reports:

“It has been a huge success by almost all metrics – we have received news coverage in Uyghur, Mandarin, French [and] Turkish languages, we have received well over 100,000 views on Instagram, we’ve exhibited at SOAS University Library, we’ve received a wide range of thanks from Uyghu community members… we will be sharing more thanks in our final newsletter, but for now, I am so proud and grateful [the] incredible achievements [of local groups].

Chinese arrest and imprison protestors

Today, we highlight Nagyz Atajurt, a Kazakhstan-based human rights organization that documents the detention and persecution of ethnic Kazakhs and other Muslim minorities in the Uyghur region.

The curator of the Xinjiang Victims Database at shahit.biz, Gene Bunin, talks in this video about how Atajurt were instrumental in campaigning on behalf of the Uyghur region: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao1keGNxl1w. After a peaceful protest in November 2025, held over human rights abuses in the Uyghur region, 19 members of Atajurt have been convicted and sentenced this April 2026 – 11 were handed five year prison sentences, and 8 were sentenced to “restrictions of freedom” sentences.

At the Afghanistan and Central Asia Association (ACAA), an organisation focusing on rights of refugees in the UK and rights defenders across the Central Asia region, volunteers worked with us to create a temporary wall mural for Atajurt in their main meeting space –  writing for Atajurt in the simplest way we knew how, remembering how Atajurt wrote for Uyghurs.

Report

We shall be reporting on the results of the Salisbury group’s small part in this campaign but the main thing we shall be highlighting is the extremely high level of views from within China itself and Hong Kong. Because of the firewall, the number of views from there in the past has been tiny. As we have seen in the reporting of the devastating floods in Nepal, the Chinese have released few details and reporters are not allowed into the region, all part of the secrecy and restrictions imposed by the CCP on its citizens and on the world.

The oppression of the Uyghurs and other minorities in the area is massive. One of the main things we have highlighted is that, although a long way away, some of the clothes you wear and the solar panels on your roof contain elements of the forced labour that is taking place there. We are all truly involved…

Photo: Amnesty campaign team. Most of the text of this post is by the campaign team.

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Recent posts:

• Uyghur campaign: last day (for now)
• Good response to our 143rd vigil
• Exeter University in the spotlight
• It’s not just cotton from Xinjiang …
• Vigil No. 142

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