Uyghurs Under Threat

In light of the Human Rights violations against the Uyghur population happening in Xinjiang, a region in the northwest of China known to most Uyghur people as East Turkestan, join the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (MIGS) for a high-level discussion on the persecution of the Uyghur.

China is believed to have detained up to two million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in internment camps in the far-western region of Xinjiang. While Beijing claims to be providing vocational training or rooting out terrorism and separatism, there are numerous accounts of human rights abuses, including forced sterilization. According to The Atlantic, dozens of graveyards and religious sites have been destroyed, Uighur language is banned in Xinjiang schools, and practicing Islam (the predominant Uighur faith), has been discouraged. There are now strong accusations of cultural genocide.

The format will consists of two-panel discussions followed by a policy roundtable. The first panel will be with academics, and the second with journalists and survivors. The roundtable will bring together experts and officials from human rights organizations to discuss possible policy responses to the persecution of the Uyghur.

Introductory remarks

Irwin Cotler, retired Canadian politician, Emeritus Professor of Law, and Founder and Chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights

Panel 1: Academic Panel

• Darren Byler, Department of Anthropology, University of Washington.
• Sean Roberts, associate professor of the Practice of International Affairs, and director, International Development Studies Program, Elliott School of International Affairs.
• Marie-Ève Melanson, PhD candidate at McGill University's School of Religious Studies, and research assistant on Susan Palmer's SSHRC-funded project "Children in Minority Religions and State Control."
• Dilnur Reyhan, president of the Uyghur Institute of Europe.
• Moderator: Kim Manning, associate professor of political science, and principal of the Simone de Beauvoir Institute at Concordia University.

Panel 2: Witness Panel

• Mihrigul Tursun, camp survivor.
• Nury Turkel, Uighur human rights lawyer, founder of the Uighur Human Rights Project, and commissioner of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.
• Adrian Zenz, German anthropologist and senior fellow in China Studies at VOC.
• Moderator: TBC

Policy Roundtable

• Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch.
• Garnett Genuis, Member of the Canadian Parliament for Sherwood Park, and shadow minister for International Development & Human Rights.
• Preston Lim, J.D. candidate at Yale Law School.
• Moderator: Kyle Matthews, executive director, MIGS.