Uyghur Human Rights Project

UHRP welcomes the Department of Homeland Security’s addition of 43 entities to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act entity list. It is the largest single expansion to date, bringing the total number of entities to 187.

The newly listed companies operate across industries including critical minerals, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, and electronics, demonstrating the scope of Uyghur forced labor embedded in global supply chains.

“Uyghurs have long awaited stronger action against companies linked to forced labor,” said UHRP Executive Director Omer Kanat. “We are grateful to U.S. officials for taking action to help ensure that goods made with Uyghur forced labor do not enter American markets. Adding 43 companies to the UFLPA Entity List sends a clear message: companies must not be allowed to profit from forced labor.”

UHRP Welcomes Largest-Ever Expansion of UFLPA Entity List - Uyghur Human Rights Project For immediate release July 31, 2026, 6:30PM EST Contact: Omer Kanat, +1 (202) 790-1795 The Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) welcomes the Department of Homeland Security’s addition of 43 entities to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act entity list. It is the largest single expansion to date, br...

On July 28, 2014, Chinese security forces killed dozens of peaceful Uyghur demonstrators in Yarkand, East Turkistan.

The Yarkand killings should have been a wake-up call to the international community. Instead, China’s impunity for blatant state violence laid the foundation for today’s genocide.

UHRP documented China's violent crackdown in a 2015 report. 11 years later, victims and their families still seek justice. The perpetrators of the Yarkand killings must be held accountable.

Legitimizing Repression: China's "War on Terror" Under Xi Jinping and State Policy in East Turkestan - Uyghur Human Rights Project New report from the Uyghur Human Rights Project analyses political violence from 2013-14

📖 New – A biweekly roundup of essential reporting and analysis on the Uyghur crisis, curated by UHRP staff.

Issue 28: July 9 – July 22

🏭 Investment Despite Sanctions: The Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) continues to attract foreign investment despite US sanctions for its central role in the repression of Uyghurs, writes Jonah Reisboard for The Jamestown Foundation.

🇨🇳 "Ethnic Unity" Codifies Assimilation: China's new Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress makes the promotion of a unified Chinese identity the responsibility of the entire state – and risks intensifying conflict, warns Aaron Glasserman for Foreign Policy.

🚨 Top Official Expelled: Former Xinjiang Communist Party Secretary Ma Xingrui, who led the Uyghur Region from 2021-2025 and oversaw China's repression of Uyghurs, was expelled from the CCP over corruption & abuse of power charges, reports Alexandra Stevenson for The New York Times.

🌏 Escalating TNR: U.S. citizen and Myanmar scholar Ma Zin was detained by China on alleged espionage charges, reflecting China's expanding campaign of transnational repression to silence diaspora communities and critics abroad, including Uyghurs, writes Joshua Kurlantzick for Council on Foreign Relations.

🔎 Read the full Uyghur Reader:

The Uyghur Reader: Stories We're Following (Issue 28) - Uyghur Human Rights Project Issue 28: July 9, 2026 – July 22, 2026 Welcome to the twenty-eighth issue of the Uyghur Reader, a biweekly content round-up curated by the staff of the Uyghur Human Rights Project. Each issue features carefully selected articles, reports, and publications from media outlets, academic institutions,...

📖 New – A biweekly roundup of essential reporting and analysis on the Uyghur crisis, curated by UHRP staff.

Issue 27: June 15 – July 8, 2026

🏔️ Tourism Whitewashing Abuses: Beijing is using tourism, pop culture, and curated ethnic experiences to sell a softer image of East Turkistan amid pervasive surveillance, heightened security, and policies institutionalizing assimilation, writes Colum Murphy for Bloomberg.

⚖️ Codifying Assimilation: China’s new “Ethnic Unity” law turns decades of assimilation in East Turkistan into national law. Ablet Turdi (Uyghur Rights Monitor) examines how Mandarin-only education and boarding schools are undermining the transmission of Uyghur language and identity.

🕯️Alienation at Home: Statelessness is not always the loss of citizenship – it can be the slow erosion of belonging, writes Asiye Uyghur for Global Voices, reflecting on life in the Uyghur homeland as mass surveillance, family separation, and cultural suppression intensified.

🌍 Sustaining Identity Under Threat: As Beijing dismantles Uyghur language, culture, and family life, preserving identity increasingly falls to the diaspora. In The New York Times, Uyghur exile Tahir Imin reflects on family separation and the struggle to sustain Uyghur language, literature, and traditions under transnational repression.

🇨🇳 "Unity" Hides Control: China’s new ethnic unity law uses language of "unity" and "progress" to expand state control and may provide legal cover for transnational repression through Article 63, warns Kyinzom Dhongdue (Amnesty International Australia).

🔎 Read the full Uyghur Reader:

The Uyghur Reader: Stories We're Following (Issue 27) - Uyghur Human Rights Project Issue 27: June 15 – July 8, 2026 Welcome to the twenty-seventh issue of the Uyghur Reader, a biweekly content roundup curated by the staff of the Uyghur Human Rights Project.  Each issue features carefully selected articles, reports, and publications from media outlets, academic institutions, NGO...

✍️New op-ed by UHRP's Elijah Pockell-Wilson for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute on his research exposing Australia's vulnerability to imports linked to Uyghur forced labor:

“If Australia doesn’t strengthen its own laws, goods facing tougher scrutiny in the US and Europe may be redirected onto Australian shelves.”

Australia’s door is still open to goods made with Uyghur forced labour | The Strategist Australia is leaving its market exposed to goods tied to Uyghur forced labour. As the United States and European Union move to block such goods, countries with weaker import controls risk becoming destination markets for ...

✍🏼Op-ed by Henryk Szadziewski in The Diplomat Magazine – China’s ‘Ethnic Unity’ Cup: Football and Assimilation in the Uyghur Region

A football tournament is China’s latest propaganda campaign to whitewash its abuses of Uyghur people – and deconstruct Uyghur identity in favor of Chinese “unity.”

Read more ⬇️

China’s ‘Ethnic Unity’ Cup: Football and Assimilation in the Uyghur Region A football tournament is China’s latest propaganda campaign to whitewash its abuses of Uyghur people – and deconstruct Uyghur identity in favor of Chinese “unity.”

📢Today, June 26, is the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.

We honor the bravery of survivors everywhere, including Uyghur camp survivors who have testified to physical and psychological torture in China’s detention system. The Chinese government must not be allowed to deny or erase survivors’ accounts.

➡️ Qalbinur Sidiq, who was coerced into worked inside one of the mass detention camps for Uyghurs, described torture, humiliation, and forced sterilization of detainees:

“Sometimes I would hear screams and cries for help from other rooms.” (https://www.rferl.org/a/china-uyghur-uzbek-xinjiang-muslim/33531825.html)

➡️ Mihrigul Tursun, a Uyghur camp survivor, told reporters: “I thought that I would rather die than go through this torture and begged them to kill me.” (https://apnews.com/article/61cdf7f5dfc34575aa643523b3c6b3fe)

We also remain deeply concerned for Uyghurs forcibly returned to China, including the 40 Uyghur men deported by Thailand in 2025 despite grave fears of torture, disappearance, and other serious abuses.

UN experts warned that their deportation exposed them to “enforced disappearance, torture and arbitrary deprivation of life.” (https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/02/chinas-silence-deepens-fears-over-disappeared-uyghur-returnees-year-warn-un)

China has ratified the Convention Against Torture, which requires State Parties to take effective measures to prevent acts of torture. Yet torture, cruel and degrading treatment, and deaths in custody continue.

Today, we call on governments to hold Chinese officials accountable for human rights abuses, including torture.

Uyghur Camp Survivor Details Forced Sterilization, Torture In Xinjiang A schoolteacher shares her harrowing account of the torture and forced sterilization she witnessed at an internment camp in northwestern China.

📖 New – A biweekly roundup of essential reporting and analysis on the Uyghur crisis, curated by UHRP staff.

Issue 26: June 11, 2026 – June 24, 2026

🇨🇳 Ethnic Unity Law: China's new Ethnic Unity Law claims the power to hold people abroad liable for "undermining ethnic unity" – while rights groups warn this could expand transnational repression of diaspora communities, including Uyghurs (Reuters).

🇨🇦 Forced-Labor Imports: Canada needs stronger forced-labor legislation to prevent imports linked to Uyghur forced labor from entering the market, argue Mehmet Tohti, Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, Sarah Teich, and Charles Burton, writing for The Globe and Mail.

⚖️ Flawed Trial: FIDH - International Federation for Human Rights condemned the death sentence handed down by a Thai court to two Uyghur men convicted in connection with the 2015 Bangkok bombing, citing allegations of serious due process violations.

📡 Exporting Mass Surveillance: China is promoting mass surveillance practices used against Uyghurs as model for other nations to follow, including Afghanistan, warns Tommaso Franco, writing for Fair Observer.

📖 Future Amid Loss: In a moving reflection, Rizwana Ilham writes about growing up in a generation of Uyghurs told they were the future – only to later see their culture and community systematically dismantled (UNPO).

🔎 Read the full Uyghur Reader:

The Uyghur Reader: Stories We’re Following (Issue 26) - Uyghur Human Rights Project Issue 26:  June 11, 2026 – June 24, 2026 Welcome to the twenty-sixth issue of the Uyghur Reader, a biweekly content roundup curated by the staff of the Uyghur Human Rights Project.  Each issue features carefully selected articles, reports, and publications from media outlets, academic institutio...