Photo: Uyghur women in Xinjiang province. Courtesy of Alexandra Williams
Quote: Uyghur activist Mamatjan Juma. USHMM interview
Uyghur researchers and others are working tirelessly, often at great personal risk, to document the harsh tactics the Chinese government has pursued since 2017 against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang, western China. The US government has determined that these acts—including mass detention, disappearance, and forced labor—amount to genocide and crimes against humanity. Uyghur families have spoken out as they struggle to learn what has happened to their loved ones.
Join us to hear from senior US government officials, Uyghur researchers, and other experts who will share new information about the Chinese government’s mass atrocities, even as the Chinese government tries to conceal information from the rest of the world.
A special film produced by the New Yorker based on their Emmy Award–winning documentary, Reeducated, will be shown during the event. It takes viewers inside one of China’s “reëducation” camps, guided by the recollections of three men who were imprisoned there—Erbaqyt Otarbai, Orynbek Koksebek, and Amanzhan Seituly.
Welcome
Esther Starobin, Holocaust survivor and Museum volunteer
Opening remarks
Senator Marco Rubio, Member, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations; Vice Chair, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
Representative Jim McGovern, Co-Chair, Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission; Member, Congressional-Executive Commission on China
Mark Lambert, China Coordinator and Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs, US State Department
Panelists
Muetter Iliqud, Project Researcher, Uyghur Transitional Justice Database
Rahima Mahmut, UK Director, World Uyghur Congress
Rian Thum, Senior Lecturer on East Asian History, University of Manchester
Moderator
Naomi Kikoler, Director, Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
This program is free and open to the public, but reservations are required.
For more information, please contact genocideprevention@ushmm.org.