Editorial
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Xinjiang Action List

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People often ask me what they can do to engage the issues confronting the Uyghurs, Kazakhs and Hui in Northwest China. Here is a list of action items for people who want to get evolved in the United States.

In the United States Contact Your Congress Members 

Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act is currently awaiting approval by the U.S. Congress. This bill will leverage sanctions on companies and key leaders who have been implicated in the camp system, and mandate a detailed congressional report on the global supply chain that supports these atrocities.

Join Grassroots Movements

Boycott and divest from companies and investment funds that profit from Turkic Muslim suffering. As much as 84 percent of the cotton used in Chinese made garments is sourced in the Uyghur region of China.

  • For a report on the Fortune 500 companies that are connected to the Uyghur homeland follow this link.
  • For a report on the investment funds that profit from the security industrial complex that targets Uyghurs follow this link.
  • Retailers who have directly profited through the sale of cotton garments produced by Uyghur and Turkic Muslim coerced labor (including Adidas, Espirit, Gap, H&M, Kohls, Target among others).
  • Here and here are important reports related to Uyghur forced labor.

In 2018 the U.S. retailer Badger Sports agreed to pay $300,000 in reparations to the Uyghur community because of their complicity in camp-associated labor. See the report here.

Provide Financial Support 

Donate to support Turkic Muslim solidarity.

  • The Uyghur Institute of Europe is committed to the feminist values of inclusion and decolonization as they train future generations of Uyghurs to honor their traditional knowledge and language.
  • There are thousands of Uyghur women and children who have been separated from other members of their families as undocumented refugees in Turkey. Help support their material well-being and legal defense: https://www.shukrfoundation.org.au
  • The Uyghur Human Rights Project is the premier North America-based advocacy organization. Supporting them helps to build institutional support for Uyghurs around the world: http://www.uhrp.org
  • The Xinjiang Victims Database collects and archives the testimonies of camp survivors and the testimonies of the family and friends of the disappeared. So far over 5000 unique accounts have been collected. Supporting this work is vital to grassroots solidarity and conveying the deep trauma of mass detention and separation: https://shahit.biz/eng/
  • On the West Coast, another organization called the Uyghur Projects Foundation works to promote the strengthening of Uyghur Indigenous arts and traditions: https://uyghursfoundation.org/

Teach the Crisis

The Xinjiang Documentation Project at the University of British Columbia hosts the premiere archive of evidence-based tools for teaching the crisis. In addition to timelines, infographics, a lexicon of terms, primary source documents, and scholarship, they also provide lesson plans and teaching guides.

Stay Up-to-Date

For more in-depth reading visit an ever-expanding archive of scholarly and journalistic reports from the region. Follow this link.

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Dr. Darren Byler is an Assistant Professor of International Studies at Simon Fraser University where he teaches and writes about social theory, urban ethnography and the technopolitics of life in Chinese Central Asia. He also writes a regular column on state violence and Uyghur decolonization for SupChina.

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