 Today here, we wanted to, we are not sure how familiar you are with the Uyghur Genocide, so it will be like more one Genocide 101 type of panel. And we have, first, let me introduce myself. My name is Alfida Iltebir. I am the president of Uyghur American Association. Uyghur American Association is a non-profit organization in D.C. It's a community-based organization established in 1998. The goal was, when it's established, was to preserve and promote Uyghur culture, Uyghur language, Uyghur religion and identity, basically, and promote Uyghur with democracy and other values. However, starting 2016, we were shifting our focus because of the ongoing genocide in our homeland. So we are trying to do some advocacy, raise awareness events, besides the cultural events. So here today, we have other Uyghur Americans. One of them is Tursunay Ziawadun. She is a camp survivor. So she was a detainee in China's concentration camps, and she was lucky enough to escape the camp and came to Kazakhstan first, and then Turkey, and then to U.S. Because her husband was a Kazakhstan citizen, Kazakhstan government help, and she was able to come out. And since she came to U.S., she gave interviews to BBC, CNN, and other important medias about what she saw and what she went through in China's concentration camps, including torture, sexual abuses, and she will talk about the details soon. Second speaker is Diliar Sepidin. Diliar Sepidin was just a student who came to U.S. to continue his education. He was just a regular student, like most of you. However, he was left with no choice to be an activist because his father was taken detainee to the concentration camps a couple of years ago, and it's been three years, I believe. He's still asking a simple question like, where is my father? Is he alive? He's going to share his personal story as well. We also have Kalbenur Rene, she will die pretty soon. Her story is also unique because her sister was taken to the concentration camps years and years ago, and just for having a religious book in her hand, in her house, and also she was present to 17 years. One of the excuses was to have Koran, the religious book in the house, and the second reason was praying at her father's funeral. Kalbenur also became an activist in trying to be a voice to her voiceless brothers and sisters back home for the Uyghurs, and she had met former Secretary Pompeo. She had given media constantly, giving testimonies and asking for, again, the same questions, where is my sister? Her sister is in, recently we learned that in forced labor camps and working long hours and making clothes that the factories were built inside the concentration camps. So we'll talk about those details, they will share their personal stories. I want to talk about, I have a PowerPoint slide I can go through real quick, but before I want to talk about what happened to the Uyghurs all of a sudden, so I want to start with saying that the assimilation, the discrimination, like being treated as a second cause, you know, citizen is not something new for years and years. We were, you know, dealing and being oppressed by Chinese Communist Party. It's just starting 2016. We realized our relatives, our loved ones, our friends were getting disconnected from us through from the social media channels. That's the only way we communicate usually. And we definitely, we disconnected from our loved ones and the, you know, internet and nothing, you know, works. And we were wondering what's going on. And then one by one, our writers, our professors, our scholars, our artists, singers, like all the backbone of our society, one by one, getting disappeared and detained. And we still didn't know what was going on. And China was denying the detaining Uyghurs and not giving any explanation. However, after the Canadian researcher showed the satellite images of those new camps, then China had to give explanation. And they said, oh, those are vocational training schools. We are educating Uyghurs there. But those Uyghurs are already educated ones that they detained first. That's what they said. And after the testimonies given by the camp survivors and other, you know, documents, Adrian Zan's reports, the Xinjiang police files, the pages of pages of hacked Chinese police documents and also the 10,000 photos of just one county, the detainees photos, all those evidences and proofs showed that it was definitely not different than prison. It was a concentration camps and so many things sort of going on. So let me share my screen real quick. And I will go through who are Uyghurs, why this is happening with you guys so we can look into the root cause a little bit closer. Let me make this view slide showing. All right, I hope everyone can see my screen. So I'm going to go very quickly. So we will talk about more the Uyghurs, why China oppressed Uyghurs, Uyghur lives before the camps and inside the camps and outside the camps. And also what we can do about this. So as you see is Turkistan. That's how we like to call our homeland and China called Xinjiang, which means new territory, because we were independent until 1949. We had 5,000 years of history and in recent years in 1933 and 1944, we had East Turkistan Republic. However, in 1949, we were occupied by China and then renamed our land as Xinjiang, which is a new territory. So why China oppressed Uyghurs? So first of all, as you know, China has a huge population. So our land is also big. It's a 1,664,000 square kilometers. So it is a free land for their massive migration, their expansion of their population. And also our land is very rich, mineral resources, the cotton fields and oil. It's very rich land. And geopolitically, our map, as you saw earlier, is in the west part of China, which means we are the door for China to open to the Silk Road, open to the One Belt, One Road initiative. Basically any products they make, if they want to sell to Europe and other parts of the world, they have to go through our land. That's why it's very important for them to control so strict and harsh for them for their economical reason. And other reasons, the Chinese Communist Party cannot tolerate any diversity. We already have enough evidence and documents from the Chinese government that says absolutely no mercy, strike hard policy. And basically they're saying that they cannot tolerate any other nationality in their land. They want everyone to be like strict, un-Chinese, who follows everything the government say. So we words are different. We're different language, different religion, different history. That's why they couldn't assimilate us so far. And that's why they continue to assimilate and make one nation, one land policy. And I want to go a little faster. So as we already talked about how their gas pipeline, have their trade line, everything go through our land, is Turkistan. So as you see in the streets, we have very unique, like thousands, you know, I'm exaggerating thousands, but so many cameras on every street so they can capture every single part of our lives. We are living like a surveillance state because of the facial recognition and everything they want to follow what the Uyghurs are doing. So many things are going on before the camps. Anyway, before this recent genocide started, there was forced abortion. My mom was faced the forced abortion multiple times. It's like drug check in the morning, government employees, you know, doctors come and round up the ladies and checks. And if you're pregnant, you have to do abortion. You're not allowed to because in the past in 1980s, there was one child policy to control China's population. And because of that, there were two child for minorities and one child for Chinese. So because under the debt guys, that rule, they were doing forced abortion and forced contraception. And then on Uyghur language schools and our language, we're no longer teaching our schools, Uyghur and Muslim or Turkic names were also banned, like Mohammed Fatma, they're banned. So we don't link to our roots, our history and then on practice of religion, definitely China looks at religion as a disease. They think it's a threat to their government's stability. So they look at it like there are other religions too, not only Muslims, right? There are Islam, there are Judaism, there are Christians, there are Buddhists. However, the government doesn't recognize religion and they're against religion and they don't want religion to unite people. And separation from Turkic and Muslim root, definitely they're doing that. They rewrote the history books. They rewrote the Quran that fits in their own ideology and the communication with outside China was always controlled, listened and you know, cut. And life inside the camps, let me be faster so others can speak. We don't have much time. So this is the camp, the photos you see in the bottom. This is the camp. As you see, this is their bathroom inside the room. It's a bucket basically, very small room, crowded, not enough room. Those people sleep on that bench, eat on that bench, learn on that bench, learning, meaning political indoctrination. They do everything in there and their cameras, no windows. It's strictly watch 24-7. Even at night, the lights are not off. And so political indoctrination, what our people are going through. A number of the people inside the camps is one to three million. I say that because State Department said it is two millions and the Pentagon's and it's up to three millions, but however, we would believe it's much more than that. So there are political indoctrination going on, their torture, their sterilization. In fact, the Camp Survivor, Zumrat Davut, was sterilized as well. That's one of the evidence we have. She has even the paperwork that shows that she went through sterilization. And there is rape, gang rape. And also, as I mentioned earlier, they built factories inside or near the camps. So there's forced labor and organ harvesting, unfortunately, separation of family and children when the parents are taken to the camps, the children are taken to the state run orphanages, boarding schools and kindergarten. And they're raised as a hand Chinese stripped away their identity, their language, their culture, their religion. And I am afraid of our future in 20, 30 years, how our future kids will be. And also, China used those people as the testing zone for their medicine, for their shots, for their technological tools, like facial recognition and the cameras. The photos on the right on the top, as you see, that is an airport in Urumqi and Kashgar. A report on the floor says a fast lane for organs and organ transport. You imagine how much of the organs are being transferred from Urumqi from Uyghur region to other side to the hospitals for the world demand. That they need a faster lane at the airport. In Holocaust, after the Holocaust, they count the schools to see how many people were died. But China is smart enough. And what they're doing is building crematoriums around the camps. And they're burning those bodies. So in the future, we can't tell how many people they killed. All those people in the camps before they take in their DNA is taken, their full scans of their body, you know, ultrasound, everything is taken. So China has a massive data to use for the organ harvesting, for the organ transparent market. So this is the photos. As you see, it was just a mountain in 2015 and 2018. There we go. We have a camp that can hold 70,000 people, only inside Urumqi. And we have over 570 camps in our land outside the camps. So we talked about the camps, what they go through outside the camp. Also, people are surveillance state. As I said, the cameras everywhere, they can't trust anyone like they constantly afraid of speaking up naturally sterilization still outside the camp. It's going on forced abortion going on forced marriage. So as I mentioned, China had the one child policy starting 1980s. So what they were Chinese were doing is doing abortion for the girls so they can keep the boys and continue their last name, continue their route. So what happened at the end of their 10, 15 years is there's so many patriots, so many male proportion, much higher than the female. So with this, you know, discrepancy, they need more female. So they were looking around the countries around. And of course, Uyghurs are there for them. And they were government itself has ads and said if Uyghur marries the Chinese and there is an incentive, they will give a house. They will, you know, increase their salary and things like that. And unfortunately, some of the ruler areas, the Uyghurs, when they reject, they're threatened by the government saying that their parents will be taken to the camp if they're not taken yet. Or if they're in the camp, they will be killed. So girls, Uyghur girls are sacrificing themselves to marry a Han Chinese government officials to save their parents, save their family. And this is a one sad tragedy that as you see on the photo on the right, who will be that upset and crying on the wedding? Unfortunately, this is another truth going on. And the Chinese relative plan on the photo you see on the right, the camp survivors in Red Doubt also, you know, witnessed, but she had Chinese relatives in her house. So the government came up with a systematic plan that they send the government cadre to the houses of the villages and rural areas that they stay at one Chinese man stays in the house of Uyghurs and reports everything they do. Are they praying? Are they saying against something against government? Are they, you know, reading Xi Jinping's book or not? You know, those kind of things or even the kids, they're asking you kids question, your parents, do they pray, do they fast, that kind of things? And unfortunately, it's unbelievable that a stranger in your house stays with you for months and reports everything you do. But that's going on in our homeland and transfer Uyghurs to inner China, according to Adrian Zenz, a report with Associated Press, 1.6 million Uyghurs unwillingly, you know, willingly transferred to inner China to the factories as a forced labor unit. Like there were articles as Uyghurs for sale, I have 500 Uyghur women who can work for you, you know, ages this much. Like it's so sad for us to see things like that. And unfortunately, under just as a slave labor and forced labor, Uyghur people are producing clothes that are, you know, exported to the world and stripped away from identity language culture. We already talked about it. And this is the birth rate again, the forced sterilization and abortion and birth control. We talked about it. This is again from the Adrian Zenz report, AP report that the birth rates fell 60 percent from 2015 to 2018 and 24 percent in 2019. The kids were sent to, we already mentioned, the state run orphanages and boarding schools and kindergarten, unfortunately, not given to the grandparents or others. And like some Uyghurs in exile, Uyghurs in diaspora recognize their child from those photos, unfortunately, that they were in the basically child's camps. As you see, Uyghur culture is such a rich culture. I told you, we have a history of like five thousand years of history and kingdoms and even republics. Our architecture is so beautiful. The houses is like so in details, as you see on the left. But that is all being destroyed by Chinese government as well as you see in the bottom and on the right side. It's because that shows again, our rich history, our rich culture, and they want to destroy that. They're against something different than their culture, than their history, than themselves. And mosques, as I said, the religion is also considered as a threat for them. So they kept a couple of mosques as a symbol to show to the tourists or the media, but they demolished so many mosques that are historical mosques and beautiful mosques in other cities and states. And the Uyghurs, outside... I apologize if you hear that voice. I think outside somebody is moaning their life. Outside China, outside is Turkistan, our homeland. Uyghurs are also suffering. We call it transnational repression. Unfortunately, most of us are getting threatening messages from China's police and China's longhand. And basically, the Chinese government hold our loved ones, our family as a hostage and trying to control our activities outside here. And what do they do? They call us and say, don't go to political activities. Don't speak up. Don't delete your tweets about... So that's what they're trying to do and constantly make us uncomfortable, make us scared, make us think about our loved ones back home to try to silence us, basically. This is a guy, Yusuf Cennet, in Turkey. He was also forced to be a spy for Chinese Communist Party, Chinese embassy in Turkey. When he had rejected it, later on, he was also shot. That's one example I was just sharing here. Another tactic they use is all the students outside China, Uyghur students, they're trying to bring them back and they arrest them. So what they do is, when your passport expired, they don't renew and they say, you need to go back to homeland, you have mainland, and then you need to renew with there. And when you go there, you're arrested. Why? It's because the students who visited outside China, especially Western countries, they now know they're exposed to democracy, they're exposed to freedom of speech, they're exposed to freedom of religion. They know Western ideology, how to be free and democracy. And that's what China is afraid. And they're afraid when they allow those students to go back, these ideas will spread, they will tell other Uyghurs and they will teach others those values. And they're afraid that that's going to be the end of Chinese Communist Party stability. And that's other reasons. So recent updates, both Trump and Biden administration declare what's going on in China, the China's oppression as genocide. And after that, seven other government followed Canada, UK and other parliaments and EU also said that it is genocide, it's crimes against humanity. However, we still see the Muslim countries and African countries and other countries silenced. US put many AD or AD sanctions, visa restrictions and business advisors put up there. And two bill passed in the US is one is Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act and second one is Uyghur Human, Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. We would like to thank US and our Congress members for this because the impact in China by human rights condemnation is not gonna work when we hit their pocket, when it hits their economy, when it impacts their economy, then I think they react and maybe they change their policies. So we believe in that and we continue to advocate for the bills, current bills are Uyghur Human Rights Protection Act, which gives a refugee P2 status for Uyghurs and other bills are like the Disclosure Act and we can talk about these details later. And UN recently published a released a bachelor's report. So it says it's a serious risk of crimes against humanity and international crimes. So after that, now UN also has its responsibility. Mostly Western countries are trying to support just recently, Canada read the statement by 50 UN countries siding that Uyghur genocide and to do something about it, to hold China accountable. Otherwise China is still enjoying impunity in the UN and in the world because of their economic power. There have been silencing African countries and Muslim countries with the trade incentives and other, you know, threats. That's why it's still six year, the genocide of ongoing people are still in the camps and this is going on. What can we do? We can raise awareness, you know, just like this, have an, you know, event in universities and colleges and tell your neighbors, tell your friends and basically tell them what's going on in China and why Uyghurs are being oppressed. Support Uyghur organizations, human rights, Uyghur American Association, Uyghur Human Rights Projects, you know, their campaign for Uyghur, many Uyghur organizations trying to do the same thing, be voice to their voiceless people. Donate them if you can, contact your Congress member, tell them you support Uyghurs and you want your Congress member to stay with Uyghurs and stay with justice, stay on the right side of the history and advocate for Uyghur bills and, you know, contact us, work with us to do advocacy work and lobbying work at the Hill. That's all I said, sorry if I take too long and I am, we are going to take questions at the end but I would like to now ask Tursonay to briefly share her personal story so I can translate it for you guys. Tursonayede, I'm this is Ikeldi, Gheksans buldu, Beş Minotlam Gheksak buldu kene. Tursonayede, with all respect to your time, let me go to Kalbinur next and then I will go back. I know I'm not following the orders but we will hear from our sister Kalbinur whose sister is in the camp and then we will go back to Tursonay. Aslamu alaikum. Oh, okay, all right, all right. Let's take back. Alaykum salam. Beş Minotlam Gheksak buldu, Beş Minotlam Gheksak buldu, Beş Minotlam Gheksak buldu, Beş Minotlam Gheksak buldu, Beş Minotlam Gheksak buldu, Beş Minotlam Gheksak buldu, Beş Minotlam Gheksak buldu, Beş Minotlam Gheksak buldu, Beş Minotlam Gheksak buldu, Ber Goodnight, Hello everyone, greetings. My name is Trusan Aiziaudun. I am China's concentration camp detainee and at the same time survivor and witness to the concentration camps. I went to camps twice, 2017 and 2018 and total I stayed one year inside the concentration camp. First time when I was taken to the concentration camps, I was on the street. There was no explanation. They just said there is a meeting and they took me, arrest me from the street and take me to the concentration camps. And there were around 1000 people there. There were old ladies, there were young girls and we are very crowded and I was among them. The first one when I was arrested, they put us in a big room and they took our headscarves, they forced us to eat pork, they told us that we were not supposed to say we are Muslim and also we were learning like indoctrination documents and materials that was denying our religion. The main reason I understood later that the reason was that I was Uyghur, my identity. But the excuses they were given for us, for all the ladies, I think she was in the ladies camp is because some people read Quran, that's why they were arrested. Some people were wearing hijab, that's why they were arrested. Some people were wearing long dress, that's why. And some went outside China, like went overseas, just like me. And those are the many, one of the reasons why those people were arrested and put into concentration camps. Also, one of the reasons was to have more children, like three or four, was also a reason to be taken to the concentration camps. First time when I was arrested, it was very bad condition. For example, there were not enough food, we were always hungry. I lost consciousness because of the malnutrition, I was sick and that's how I was out on the first time when I was inside. And what they were doing is basically brainwashing, like teaching us the Chinese ideology. Second time when I was arrested, it was much different. As soon as we were taken to the camps, it was a big building, it was different. There were so many police with weapons armed police and armed police. And the condition was different too. Then second time when I was arrested, I faced the torture, I was hit by sticks and batons and I went through so many bad memories, I went through so many bad things. If I had been arrested for a long time, I would have been arrested, but there was no place for me to go, it was just a very small place. I went to the hospital, I had a doctor and I did a medical examination, and I was treated and I was arrested, I was treated. But the first time I was arrested, my father was in a hospital, I was taken to the hospital and I was treated and I was held in a prison. And the first day, when I was arrested for the second time, I remember there was one old lady who had a headscarf and it was taken and she was hit and so bad and she was undressed. It was very sad that the atmosphere was also different because it was so overcrowded, men were in the other section, women were in the different section. And it was totally unacceptable view. They were very rude, they were very harsh. Even the earrings on my ear, they wanted to take it out and they just pulled it out. My ear was almost bleeding. They put me into a room that is like a four meter square feet. We were like almost 20 people inside that small room. And then in the next couple of minutes I was supposed to leave the room. But when I was in the apartment, I couldn't open the door. The condition, the hygiene in the room was terrible, there is a bucket in the corner and that is our restrooms. And everything is being watched. Unfortunately, we don't even have enough time for the restroom breaks. It's only three minutes. If you pass you will get hit. That's how we stayed there after a month. They start to interrogate us, taking us to the questioner interrogation room and questioned. And every time we go, we get hit, we got tortured. Unfortunately, another sad thing I witness is at night. The police were coming and saying that they were taking us to the questioning room. And the young girls were disappearing. They were selecting girls and taking out sometimes they never come back. Sometimes they come back as like almost dead position. And we didn't know what was going on. There was a demanding interrogation going on. The person who was in charge had to be kept waiting for 10 or 15 days. The whole process was under Thomas's administration, and just the rest of the people, and the rest of the people was caught. the rules there was constantly changing they didn't even know what's going on they uh once they took us at the beginning and shaved our head to cut our ears after like 15 days then they took all of us to a different room and they did forced sterilization and even forced abortion for one of the lady who was pregnant um so i was i thought the the girls disappeared at nice being tortured and one day they also called me and i was out and i witnessed what was actually going on um they sexually abused us and even in front of me they raped the other young girl and then she didn't want to talk about more details they forced us to do it so that nobody else would be mistaken for some who was actually losing their brain because they were supposed to be dead their hearts are hoping that they will find them and that they will never be able to die again and again no one is actually living in peace again after all they were not even able to make a living again and again It was unbearable at night, you hear screams, you hear people bagging and help for the help. And I cannot describe what I went through every single night we went through this and it was very scary. And it wasn't just females that were going sexually abuse, it was also the men side. You could hear men screaming, yelling too. Sometimes it's so loud, so different that you can't even differentiate if it's animal or human or what's going on. We are just like on like leaving like that in that situation. And I even witnessed once that they made me pass through a room that a man or a man was hanged outside and there were so many cuts on his body and there he was tortured. We went through all this inside the camps. A couple girls died. I witnessed their dad with losing too much blood and I know after they called me I know what they went through because they are their torture is inhumane. They use those baton and sticks to your private area to torture you and I went through that and because I went through then I understood why those girls were so silenced and all as unconscious. Inside the camp is there is a small hospital when you like very terrible they take you there or sometimes they check your blood they use for the testings and things like so when I went there I also witnessed a very unacceptable reality. I seen people in those hospital rooms that not just women they were being sterilized also men were going through sterilization and they were just destroying us. Lastly I want to say there are so many things I can tell it takes long time but starvation was another big issue in there because so many workers are in the camps and not enough food and so many times I lost conscious and not didn't get enough food and I was bagging them to give me bread and those are the things that I went through there. I would like to thank everyone who organized this event who allow us to talk and share our stories. I hope you know what's going on now that you can say I didn't know and I hope you help the raise awareness of this we were genocide you help those innocent people because we are very helpless and thank you so much. I would like to thank for Trusunay Hades speech because of her husband being Kazakhstan citizen she was able to come out and now we would like to go to Kalbanur and share her personal stories. Hi, good morning everyone and firstly thank you so much for organizing this event for Uyghurs and also like same as Uyghurs and I would like to thanks to like giving attention to Uyghur cows and my name is Kalbanur Ghani I grew I born in China and then I lived in China until 2015 so I think most of the general part already covered by Alfida and also Trusunay so like my part I would like to give testimony what happened to my family during this Uyghur genocide and from my family during the last five years at least 12 of them and including my sister and then my six of thousand brothers and sisters and two uncles so this is my sister photo and this is her son my sister Ben Agul Ghani she was teacher in the primary school and government primary school she's art teacher she had literature and also art painter literally paint every day and teach children how to paint she was detained in 2017 for the mass concentration camp and along with a lot of teachers together any given any any and after she stayed in the mass concentration camp like two and a half year later like she two and a half year until like in of 2020 and they give sentence her 17 years seven years that she prayed at our father funeral my father's passed away in 2013 and then additional 10 years for she kept a religious book which is actually there is a no book found and after I when I asked my family members this is the only excuse to come and use it to give a long sentence to and then other derivatives and I have one another cousin brother 25 years old his name is Manmachan Yusuf he was detained in 2017 too and like in the 2017 and 2018 I believe there's mass detention for the Uyghurs like I think at least millions of was detained they detained first for a few years until few years they just tortured whatever they want to do just do and then after that they they come one by one and then some of them like few of them was released some of them most of them like my sister my brother they give him long sentence they give into my cousin brother Manmachan life sentence for 25 25 years old boy like without any reason I don't know and then my uncle Jaffa Timur he they give him also like the he detained 2017 after that they give him 20 years long sentence and many other my cousin sisters and brothers is missing because I mean overseas I don't know where are they and then they are alive or dead and since I giving this testimonies and also like speaking up since 2019 and Chinese government start to harass me through by like Richard call me every day or every other day and then if I don't pick up the Richard call and they bother harass my mom and they they threat her if you if your daughter not speaking like not answering I you call you will be punished and then my mom every day begging me please answer they call so I have to answer when they answer like as Alphina say they say like you need to stop from speaking up you need to stop like treat or you need to delete all your tweets or you need to like delete your videos because because I start to speak up since 2019 for my sister freedom because she has not only my sister my other relatives and all other viewers all dies and didn't do anything wrong because of identity was detained so since I speak up Chinese government so so unhappy and they try to silence me in many way like like still like Alphina say there is like threatened message from the through by my Twitter on the Facebook like that's that message or you will be killed if you keep speaking up so of course I didn't stop for speaking up and I'm speaking last four years and the things still keep going it didn't change but we have faith I believe in justice and I believe in God too and this will be in one day and then we will be China will be punished it's on on crime soon and but we need your help and we need your support and we need you stand in our side yeah if you have any questions I'm here and then I think there's one question about a person I says they're like the call is kosher asking how she escape and how she can be like openly speak up in here she didn't escape I remember in 2018 there is a Kazakhstan government had to negotiate because there's a lot of Kazakh people also detained not only Uyghurs and Kazakhstan government that negotiate with China there's a release 2000 Kazakhs and to tonight's sister husband was Kazakhstan's Kazakhstan citizen that's the reason she was released because of her husband and she was in Kazakhstan before she moved to United States I hope that's answer your question thank you so much to save the time we will go to Adilyar Saipedin now to share his story and then we can go to questions go ahead Adilyar while we waiting for Adilyar I can maybe answer the question I think there was somebody yes not only Uyghurs was detained there is a Kazakhs there is Kyrgyz there's Uzbek most of the Turkic ethnic minority group that that's like who was like we are practicing Islam also who is like similar is the Turkish identity people all like most of them is was detained. Adilyar can you try your mic now yeah can you hear me okay go ahead yes go ahead okay yeah sorry about that so hi everyone so my name is Adilyar Saipedin I've been in the US since 2014 today I would like to share one of my tragic story which is related to my parents I've been lost contact with my I never seen my parents almost like seven years by now and then I completely lost contact with my father his name is Saipedin Yemin this is his picture so it's almost been two years I lost contact with him and then because China China's authority forcefully detained him and then put him in the concentration camp so what reason just simply because he sacrificed himself and then send us to the free country like US and then get the higher education and that's the only reason he they are punishing him and then since that I never talked to him I don't even know he is alive or dead and then only my mom was left outside and then she's at home alone and then even with my mom I can talk like regularly just as usual and then whenever I talk to her and then try to ask about my father she's like a very crying and then she's like very sad and then also scared because she cannot say anything about my father and then we usually just say like a like a not directly say my father but we just say like your grandfather so I just say how how's my grandpa and then she's like always like trying to avoid the topic and then she just say yeah he's fine he's fine and then just either hand up the phone or just switch to different topic because of the Chinese constant team monitor our conversation in the vchat and maybe you know like you know there's some news about like how chinese app like vchat or maybe other app they can monitor your speech or like videos etc so since I come I was I came as a student and then after that I start to work as a IT right now I'm working in the progressive insurance as a software test engineer so I have my daughter right now I have my family here it's like it's kind of like very sad every day it's kind of like affecting my psychology as well because I usually I was trying so hard like for example like your parents try so hard to give you like a old education all the support you need and then by the time you get you go to US and then get your education and then go to work suddenly you build your family here and then even you try to bring them to live with you suddenly they're disappeared and then I don't know my father is alive or dead and then it's like a very he's kind of like my hero he did a lot of things and then I was not worrying about my mom at the time but as if it's not enough right now maybe you heard like it's been like three months the lockdown all the which is my hometown and then and also also other other cities the lockdown the cities and then because of the zero code zero code policy that's kind of like excuse for them to like killing all of our people my mom also in the city is she's in at home she's been like three three months she cannot go outside and then recently I talked to her and then I was like so worried about her and then she keeps saying don't worry don't worry it's okay like she doesn't want to say anything bad about Chinese so that's why and then but she said like son our home is very cold and I was asking why don't you pay the like don't you have the heat etc and then she said no we cannot go outside so we cannot pay the bill and then there is no heat no like AC etc so and then at home it's winter is coming she's like a very cold at home I was like I don't know what to what to help her and then it was like so emotional and then I just say okay mom like we will try to save you etc and then yeah that's what's happening in our East Turkistan right now when I come to the US like for eight years ago I completely like start to uh last contact with my all my friends and the students are like my classmates the only way we can contact is a WeChat and whenever I see the WeChat people started deleting me because I posted some pictures about like US like I'm in the university etc because they know like they they are not allowed to contact with the outside so they started deleting my profile and then we we no longer I no longer contact with anyone so yeah that's what's happening uh in the East Turkistan and also about the same question there was one question as being asked at Torsunay I feel like uh you guys need to be like respectful in my opinion because she's been tortured she's been even she's been raped and then people keep asking like how she escaped and then is it like it's kind of like a joke to them so I don't like that kind question in my personal opinion and then um uh also I saw some uh maybe if I am allowed to share video uh share my screen that I I saw one person was asking about uh like uh who are minorities if they are also like being treated as the same way so I found some videos about uh as you can see this those are all who are Muslims it's they are not in the East Turkistan but it's in none of China so they were praying and then uh the Chinese like trying to demolish the mosques they already demolished most of our mosques in East Turkistan but these are the mosques outside of East Turkistan this belong to those who minorities and then they are also trying to demolish this and then they kick kick the people outside of the mosque this is like worshiping place so as you can see those are like uh uh Chinese military so it's like uh it's same towards most of the other Muslims also and also uh there is some videos I found about like our Uighur people as you can see uh because of the lockdown outside the city they've been like no food no drinks as you can see there is no food there no water as well so the people people dying from starvation it's like it's happening right now like we are as we speak right now people are dying over there so as you can see their refrigerator is empty everything and then as it's not like as you can see those Chinese like they're uh they don't give the food to the people and then they're like uh like dumping all the foods to the like a food truck like trash no those are all the foods and then because of the time restriction they are let me uh they are let me stop you here uh just to add to that yes uh the recently it's been more than uh three months China is using covid guys as an excuse to star Uighurs in our homeland so basically prisons are full concentration camps are full now they're using our own house as our own prison uh do they deliver food yes if you have money they deliver food so Chinese are getting food but most Uighurs not all of them uh they live paycheck to paycheck and when they don't work for months they don't have money so they can order food and they're starving now and the Radio Free Asia and other media is uh showing the debts coming out of you know the under the guise of covid however there are China still building more camps for the future detainees so this ongoing genocide is still going looks like we are you know out ran out of time I would like to answer the questions that you have so but we don't have much time and I will share my email address and if you can email it to me I would like to go through one by one and answer your questions and feel free to contact us for other reasons as well if you want to organize any events in your church in your synagogue in your mosque or other places one of the question was is it because of your Muslim or because of your Uighur I think it's both and that's why China assimilated all other 50 uh nationalities in their like minorities in their land but Uighurs were different they owned that land until 1949 we were occupied and also Uighurs identity their history a long rich history their religion their language everything is different and our religion also kept us not to be assimilated easily we had our own army own country before and that's why until 1949 so that's one of the reason why they're still trying to do their goal is Chinese Communist Party's goal is assimilate us and make one Chinese country of course and be a number one economical power in the world again thank you so much and I will turn it to you guys