77 Years of Occupation: Sham Autonomy, Religious Persecution and Genocide Against the Uyghurs

CUS Press Release

For Immediate Release

October 1, 2026

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Washington, D.C. – Today marks the 77th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. For the government in Beijing, it is a day of celebration. For the Uyghur people, this date carries an entirely different meaning: a day of mourning for a people whose homeland was taken from them.

In late 1949, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) invaded East Turkistan. Only weeks earlier, the leaders of the independent East Turkistan Republic, founded in Ghulja in 1944, had died in a still-unexplained plane crash on their way to Beijing for talks arranged by Joseph Stalin. Six years later, on October 1, 1955, Beijing formally established East Turkistan as an “autonomous region,” naming it the “Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.” The promise made to the Uyghur people was clear: in their own land, their language and faith would be protected, and they would decide their own future. Decades later, all that remains of that promise is a signboard. Uyghurs have been made refugees in their own homeland and prisoners deprived of their religious freedom.

According to CUS research, the showcase position at the head of the regional government has been given to a Uyghur. Real power, however, lies with the regional Communist Party secretary, a post that for decades has been held by Han Chinese officials appointed by Beijing. One year before “autonomy” was declared, the paramilitary Production and Construction Corps (Bingtuan) was established in 1954. Together with planned migration policies, it has radically transformed the region’s demographics. In 1953, Han Chinese made up roughly 6 percent of the population; by the 2020 census, that share had exceeded 42 percent. Uyghur-language education has been systematically removed from schools. Children have been torn from their families and cut off from their mother tongue in boarding schools. Mosque domes and minarets have been torn down, and cemeteries have been bulldozed. Fasting, praying and teaching the Qur’an have been treated as signs of “extremism.” Since 2017, millions of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims have been confined in concentration camps labeled “vocational training centers.” Finally, the Law on the Promotion of Ethnic Unity and Progress, which took effect on July 1, 2026, has made assimilation an explicit legal mandate, driving the final nail into the coffin of the promise of “autonomy.”

Executive Director Abdulhakim Idris said:

“The flag flying over Urumqi today is not the flag of the Uyghur people. For seventy-seven years, this flag has brought us not freedom but subjugation, not development but plunder, not autonomy but a cage. In 1955, they told us, ‘You will govern yourselves.’ Today, singing a lullaby in our mother tongue, teaching our children a prayer, and even calling our mothers abroad are treated as crimes.

True autonomy means the right of a people to determine their own destiny. In our homeland, that word is nothing more than a mask worn to deceive the world. Behind that mask are internment camps, forced labor, shattered families and a civilization targeted for destruction.

I call on all governments, above all those of the Muslim world: the glasses raised today at receptions in Chinese embassies are filled with the tears of Uyghur mothers. Silence is not neutrality; silence is standing with the oppressor.”

Our Call to Action

The Center for Uyghur Studies (CUS) calls on governments, international organizations, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the media to:

1. Stop repeating Beijing’s narrative. Terms such as “autonomy,” “counterterrorism” and “vocational training” are propaganda tools used to conceal systematic repression.
2. Demand independent access. Apply concrete diplomatic pressure to secure unrestricted access to the region for the United Nations and independent observers.
3. Call for the release of the arbitrarily detained. Demand the release of all Uyghurs imprisoned solely for their identity and faith, beginning with Professor Ilham Tohti and Dr. Gulshan Abbas.
4. Refuse complicity in forced labor. Ensure that your supply chains are free from the exploitation of Uyghur labor.

For seventy-seven years, the Uyghur people have lived in the shadow of a flag that is not their own. Yet their memory, language and faith endure. The Center for Uyghur Studies (CUS) will continue to preserve that memory and make it heard around the world.