By Tursun Uyghur, April 18, 2024
New York- In a bid to shed light on the plight of the Uyghur community in China, Elisha Wiesel, son of Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel and chairman of the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, World Uyghur Congress, Uyghur Human Rights Project, has organized the “Disrupting Uyghur Genocide” conference. Inspired by the harrowing experiences detailed in Gulbahar Haitiwaji’s book, “How I Survived a Chinese ‘Reeducation’ Camp,” Wiesel draws parallels between the Uyghur persecution and the Holocaust.
In early 2023, the foundation announced its financial support for Uyghur groups, including Ana Care Uyghur Language School based in Fairfax, VA.
The conference, held at the 92nd Street Y in New York, brings together activists, survivors, and experts to explore avenues for addressing the crisis. Panels cover a range of topics, including the role of multifaith collaboration, media censorship, forced labor, and cultural repression faced by the Uyghur population.
It has been widely reported and well-documented that millions of Uyghurs have been detained in a campaign aimed at eliminating Uyghur identity and culture, assimilating them into Han Chinese culture. Additionally, millions of Uyghur youth have been transferred and forced to work in labor camps. Children have been separated from their parents and sent to boarding schools at a very young age, while mosques and cultural sites have been destroyed.
Elisha Wiesel told the New York Times “My father lived Jewish values on the world stage and believed that to be Jewish is to engage with the world. My father had no problem going to the biggest bully on the planet and picking a fight, because that’s who he was. And that’s what we’re doing, frankly, because the Chinese Communist Party really is guilty of some significant atrocities against a minority population that poses no threat to them.”
Jewish organizations, particularly those in the U.S. and U.K., have been actively supporting the Uyghur people by organizing protests, lobbying Congress to pass Uyghur bills, and funding Uyghur groups. Rahima Mahmut, the Executive Director of the London-based Stop Uyghur Genocide organization, stated that the Jewish community in the U.K. has been actively supporting the Uyghur cause.
