Uyghur News Recap: Jan. 20 - 27, 2023

Gene Bunin, founder of Xinjiang Victims Database, which documents victims of China's repressive policies in Xinjiang, said protests that started last November in Urumqi and later spread to other cities in China were unlikely to have been in solidarity with Uyghurs and more likely a result of frustration with China's zero-COVID policy. Uyghur engineer urges China to release his 19-year-old sister from detention. Kewser Wayit, a U.S.-based Uyghur engineer, calls on the Chinese government to release his 19-year-old sister who was detained by Chinese authorities in Xinjiang for posting a video about "White paper" protests in China. January 19 marks two years since the U.S. officially recognized China's mistreatment of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim populations in Xinjiang as genocide. Commemorating the second anniversary of the official Uyghur genocide designation by the U.S., two Washington-based pro-independence Uyghur organizations, East Turkistan Government in Exile and East Turkistan National Movement, held a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington and released a white paper countering China's claims that Xinjiang was a part of China since ancient times. Uyghur couple with Chinese citizenship face threat of deportation from Malta. On January 16, the European Court of Human Rights ordered the Republic of Malta to halt a planned deportation of a Uyghur couple with Chinese citizenship to China after two human rights organizations, the Malta-based Aditus Foundation and the Spanish human rights group, Safeguard Defenders, on January 13 filed a case at the European Court of Human Rights against the Maltese immigration authorities, condemning their 'rejection of the two Uyghurs' appeal for humanitarian protection.