Meeting on “Forced labor and assimilation of Uyghurs” held in the Czech Republic

A meeting titled “Forced labor and assimilation in the Uyghur region” was held at the Senate of the Czech Republic, co-organized by the Ilham Tohti Initiative, the World Uyghur Congress and the Uyghur Movement.

On October 20, 2023, the Ilham Tohti Initiative, the World Uyghur Congress and the Uyghur Movement jointly organized a “testimony” meeting titled “Forced labor and assimilation in the Uyghur region” at the Senate of the Czech Republic.

At this testimony meeting, 3 Uyghurs and 1 Kazakh testified about the concentration camps and torture. Enver Can, chairman of the Ilham Tohti Initiative, Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress, and Rushan Abbas, director of the Uyghur Movement, presented a reports on the situation of the Uyghur people who have been subjected to genocide.

Sir Geoffrey Noice, judge of the Uyghur Tribunal in London, and Sara Eva Nenichkova from Charles University Law School also spoke about the Uyghur genocide.

FORCED LABOR PRODUCTS SHOULD BE BANNED ACROSS EUROPE

Senator Pavel Fischer, Chairman of the Security and Foreign Policy Department of the Czech Senate, said that based on the information, documents and evidence gathered at this meeting, he will work to ban products produced by forced labor of Uyghurs not only in the Czech Republic but also in the member states of the European Union.

PREPARATIONS FOR THE MEETING STARTED MONTHS AGO

The Czech Republic is one of the countries that recognizes China’s inhumane persecution policies in East Turkestan as “genocide”, and a Uyghur delegation led by Enver Can, chairman of the Ilham Tohti Initiative, and including Rushen Abbas, executive director of the Uyghur Movement, and Abdulhekim Idris, executive director of the Uyghur Research Institute, conducted activities in the country on March 15.

In Prague, the Uyghur delegation (accompanied by Ondrej Klimes, a representative of the Oriental Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, and assisted by Katerina Prochazkova, a staff member of the Czech Research Center) met with politicians, including Jiří Oberfalzer, Vice President of the Czech Senate.

Enver Can also asked Senator Oberfalzer to organize and chair a testimony session in the Czech Senate on China’s genocide against Uyghurs.