CUS Press Release
For Immediate Release
July 5, 2026
Today marks the 17th anniversary of the July 5, 2009 Urumqi Massacre, one of the darkest days in modern Uyghur history and a defining turning point in the Chinese Communist Party’s campaign against the Uyghur people. What began as a peaceful demonstration demanding justice for Uyghur workers brutally killed in Shaoguan, Guangdong Province, was met with overwhelming state violence. Seventeen years later, the victims are still denied justice, the disappeared remain unaccounted for, and the policies that emerged in the aftermath have evolved into the ongoing Uyghur Genocide.
On July 5, 2009, thousands of Uyghur students and civilians gathered peacefully in Urumqi to call for an independent investigation into the Shaoguan killings and to demand equal treatment under the law. Instead of responding to these legitimate demands, the Chinese Communist Party unleashed a coordinated and violent crackdown, brutally suppressing the peaceful protest through arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, and widespread violence. To this day, the Chinese government has never disclosed the true number of victims or permitted an independent investigation into the massacre.
The Urumqi Massacre marked the beginning of a new phase in Beijing’s repression of the Uyghur people. In its aftermath, the Chinese government rapidly expanded its security apparatus across East Turkistan (AKA Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region), introducing mass surveillance, digital policing, arbitrary detention, and systematic restrictions on Uyghur identity, religion, language, and culture. The impunity surrounding July 5 emboldened Chinese authorities to escalate these policies further, culminating in the mass internment campaign launched in 2017 and the atrocities that numerous governments, parliaments, and independent experts have recognized as genocide and crimes against humanity.
Executive Director Abdulhakim Idris said: “The Urumqi Massacre was not an isolated tragedy but the moment the Chinese government openly demonstrated that it could violently suppress the Uyghur people without consequence. The world’s failure to hold Beijing accountable after July 5 paved the way for the genocide we witness today. Remembering July 5 is not only about honoring those who were killed and disappeared, it is about ensuring that impunity never again enables crimes of this magnitude.”
As Uyghurs around the world commemorate this solemn anniversary, the Center for Uyghur Studies (CUS) calls on governments, international organizations, and civil society to renew their commitment to accountability, support justice for the victims of the Urumqi Massacre, and take meaningful action to end the ongoing genocide against the Uyghur people.
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