2022/11/24 - 2022/11/30: AUSTRALIAN MEDIA AND UYGUR DIASPORA RESPONSE TO THE 2022/11/24 URUMQI FIRE

Senior representatives of the World Uyghur Congress and two survivors of internment camps in Xinjiang have travelled to Australia to press the federal government to officially recognise Uyghurs as victims of genocide and help ramp up international pressure on China. The president of the World Uyghur Congress, Dolkun Isa, said while he appreciated Australia’s work to increase pressure on China in international organisations over human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Australia was yet to take any concrete steps against officials responsible for the torture and repression of Uyghurs. He also said he was deeply worried Australia would soften its stance on the issue as it tried to rebuild ties with Beijing. “The Australian parliament is still silent on this and doesn’t recognise this as genocide,” he said. (Dziedzic, 2022).

The activists told journalists in Canberra they had met with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and Shadow Foreign Minister Simon Birmingham, but Penny Wong’s office declined to set up a meeting with the foreign minister. Human rights advocates suggested the government was hesitant to take the meeting because the relationship with China was “delicately poised” following the recent meeting between Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Chinese President Xi Jinping. (Dziedzic, 2022).

“The Albanese government speaks again and again of condemnation but, unlike most like-minded nations, where is the action on Xinjiang?... Before the election Labor talked a big game on the use of Magnitsky-style sanctions and they now enjoy bipartisan support to do so, so why the inaction?” (Dziedzic, 2022).

A spokesperson for Senator Wong said she had asked a representative from her office as well as “senior officials” from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) to meet with the delegation. The Australian government also issued a forceful statement, saying the mistreatment of Uyghurs “cannot be ignored by the international community”. “Senator Wong has previously met some of the Australian representatives in the delegation, and she looks forward to the next opportunity to hear from Uyghur Australians” they said.... Australia was one of the nations that pressed the United Nations Human Rights Council to debate the recent report outlining serious abuses in Xinjiang, and the spokesperson defended the government’s record on the issue. (Dziedzic, 2022).

Tortured Uyghurs are urging the federal government to place human rights at the forefront of negotiations with China, with fears atrocities being committed will be pushed to the side as the relationship with Beijing resets. Australia’s Uyghur community and survivors of China’s detention camps in Xinjiang, were at Parliament House in Canberra on Thursday, calling on the government to recognise human rights abuses as genocide, and to ban Chinese products “tainted” by slave labour. The group, alongside Amnesty International, requested a meeting with Foreign Minister Penny Wong but were unable to secure one due to time constraints. (SBS, 2022).

Australian Uyghur Tangritagh Women’s Association President Ramila Chanisheff described Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s recent meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping as weak, saying human rights needed to be front and centre of discussions. “You can’t be sitting at the same table with someone who doesn’t play the same field as you,” she told reporters. “We think that it might be at the forefront, but not in in the near future. This is what we’re scared of, and this is urgent, this silent genocide is happening.” Ms Chanisheff asked why the government hadn’t yet applied Magnitsky-style sanctions to Chinese “criminals” with penalties having been applied to Russian officials for their involvement in the war on Ukraine. She also urged the government to back a private member’s bill introduced in the Senate about slave labour, and said if they were serious about stopping products from entering the country “tainted” by it they would support the bill. ”We ask the Australian government please don’t be selective on who you apply these rules to,” Ms Chanisheff said. ”This hidden genocide that is occurring in Turkestan is killing all of us. “I am together with the officials here to tell the ... Australian public that we need your support, and you need to talk to your MPs to please please take action now because we are disappearing from this world.” (SBS, 2022).

Kalbinur Sidik, a Uyghur survivor living in the Netherlands, said she was sent to a camp for two months in 2017 where she witnessed torture. She was forcibly sterilised two years later. “Women would also be tortured in various ways, including sexual abuse,” she said. ”The guards would also use electric batons to insert in the private parts of the detainees.” Omar Bekali, another Uyghur living in the Netherlands, said he spent eight months in a camp, where he was chained and tortured. “They would use horrible methods to torture us, interrogate us and humiliate us,” he said. “The worst methods of torture ... included inserting electric batons in our private parts.” (SBS, 2022).

Australia should approach its renewable energy transition with caution, experts say, amid concerns of labour exploitation in the production of solar panels. Poly-silicon is the most common material used to produce solar panels, and around 45 per cent of the world’s supply comes from Xinjiang, China. The United Nations says China may be committing crimes against humanity in Xinjiang, with experts accusing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) of exploiting its Uyghur Muslim minority into forced labour to make products including solar panels. (Canetti, 2022).

Program Manager at Campaign for Uyghurs in Washington DC, Arslan Hidayat, also said the Australian government needs to do more to prevent products with slavery links, such as solar panels, from being sold in Australia. ”There seems to be a battle between what’s more important: climate change or human rights,” he said. “Obviously, both of them are very important issues. But you have these heartless, major conglomerate companies, that are using the excuse of climate change as a loophole to try and get in their products.”Mr Hidayat said companies in Australia should “have to prove their products aren’t made from slave labour” before they’re allowed in the country. (Canetti, 2022).

Clean Energy Council Policy Director of Energy Generation and Storage, Dr Nicholas Aberle, told SBS News the council “condemns the use of forced labour in supply chains”. “It is vital that the clean energy transition is both fair and equitable,” he said. The council established the Risks of Modern Slavery Working Group in 2020. “The group has been actively exploring ways to understand where the risks lie, grow awareness of them, and manage them in a way that does not increase the vulnerability of workers in developing countries,” he said. (Canetti, 2022).

A fire that occurred in Urumqi city, Xinjiang, on the evening of November 24 has triggered waves of mourning and anger on Chinese social media. Ten people lost their lives in the fire, and nine people sustained injuries. According to Chinese media reports, the fire broke out at 19:54 at the 15th floor of a high-rise residential building in the Jixiangyuan community in the city’s Tianshan district. The fire further spread up to the 17th floor, with the smoke going up to the 21st floor. It was not until 22:35 on Thursday night before the fire was extinguished. There have been various reports circulating online suggesting that there was a delay in fire trucks arriving at the scene of the emergency. Obstructions on the road allegedly prevented firefighters from moving forward and the road obstructions (possibly also including pillars and parked cars) had to be removed first. Local authorities are currently investigating the incident. (Koetse, 2022)

As Chinese netizens mourned the victims of the fire, they also expressed anger over how these people spent the last 106 days of their lives in (partial) lockdown. Some posted protest images saying “NO” to excessive epidemic measures... (Koetse, 2022)

A fire in an apartment building in north-western China’s Xinjiang region has killed 10 people and injured nine, authorities say. The fire broke out on Thursday night in Xinjiang’s regional capital of Urumqi It is believed the fire was sparked from a power strip in the bedroom of one of the units Videos on social media showed an arc of water from a distant fire truck falling short of the fire, sparking angry comments online. The fire broke out on Thursday night in the regional capital of Urumqi, where temperatures dropped below freezing after dark. Flames spread upward from the 15th floor to the 17th floor, with smoke billowing up to the 21st floor, according to multiple state media reports. The blaze took about three hours to extinguish. The deaths and injuries were caused by inhalation of toxic fumes, with those taken to the hospital all expected to survive, the reports said. An initial investigation appeared to show the fire was sparked from a power strip in a bedroom of one of the 15th-floor apartments, they said. Ageing infrastructure, poor safety awareness and, in some cases, government corruption have led to a series of recent fires, explosions and building collapses around China, which continues to grapple with new COVID-19 outbreaks, prompting lockdowns and rigid travel restrictions affecting millions of people... Some said fire engines had been blocked by pandemic control barriers or by cars stranded after their owners were put in quarantine, but the reason why the truck was far away was unclear. Many Xinjiang residents are frustrated with China’s harsh COVID-19 controls, including frequent testing, travel restrictions and rolling lockdowns. Some have been under lockdown for more than three months. China might be slowly exiting its COVID zero strategy. With COVID-19 cases and impatience with restrictions both at an all-time high, China is grappling with how to move on from an elimination strategy. The Jixiangyuan community, where the Urumqi fire was, is designated a “low COVID-19 risk area” and residents were permitted outside their apartments, according to the reports. It wasn’t clear whether they were able to leave their compounds. Urumqi has not experienced a major recent outbreak, with just 977 cases reported on Friday, almost all of them asymptomatic. However, as in many parts of China, local officials fearful of losing their jobs are leaning toward more extreme measures to prevent outbreaks within their jurisdictions.. (ABC, 2022):

A fire in an apartment building in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region has killed 10 people and injured nine, authorities say, in the second major fire in the country this week, leaving a total of 48 dead. The fire broke out on Thursday night in the regional capital of Urumqi, where temperatures have dropped below freezing after dark. Flames spread upward from the 15th floor to the 17th floor, with smoke billowing up to the 21st floor, according to multiple state media reports. The blaze took about three hours to extinguish. The deaths and injuries were caused by inhalation of toxic fumes, with those taken to the hospital all expected to survive, the reports said. An initial investigation appeared to show the fire was sparked from a power strip in a bedroom of one of the 15th-floor apartments, they said. Ageing infrastructure, poor safety awareness and, in some cases, government corruption have led to series of recent fires, explosions and building collapses around China, which continues to grapple with new COVID-19 outbreaks, prompting lockdowns and rigid travel restrictions affecting millions of people. (CT, 2022).

A war over Taiwan? A clash in the South China Sea? Throw in, too, the danger of a financial crisis sparked by a property crash. There’s no shortage of catastrophes canvassed for China, which, for the moment, haven’t eventuated. But anyone worried about risk in China should focus their attention elsewhere for the moment, on Beijing’s dogged adherence to COVID Zero – a policy that is strangling the economy and triggering serious unrest. (McGregor, 2022).

To take one snapshot, consider the possible flow-on effects of the now near daily riots outside the Foxconn factories that manufacture the bulk of the world’s iPhones, near Zhengzhou in central China. The protests – triggered by workers who either fled COVID lockdowns or worried about being forced to live alongside people with the virus, or were simply angry at being underpaid – could hit everything from Apple’s share price, the availability of new phones to multiple top-level political careers in both China and Taiwan. (Foxconn is owned by a Taiwanese tycoon with political ambitions.) Multiple the emerging chaos at the Apple factories many times over, with lockdowns either underway or threatened in Beijing and the upscale and downmarket manufacturing centres around Shenzhen and Guangzhou in southern China, and the impact at home and abroad becomes dire. (McGregor, 2022)

Local officials are floundering under conflicting objectives dictated by the centre. On the one hand, they are being told to “maximise people’s health”; on other, to “minimise impact on the economy”. The two cannot be reconciled, and as long as Xi Jinping adheres to a COVID Zero mentality, lockdowns will win, and the economy will suffer. Growth this year will be lucky to half of the 5.5 per cent official target. (McGregor, 2022)

With the COVID Zero policy now unravelling, Beijing’s claims of systemic superiority are starting to look threadbare. One positive case means that your entire apartment building is sealed off for five days. If you are marked as a “close contact”, perhaps for being in the same bar a few days earlier as someone who tested positive, you might be carted off to quarantine. In the early days, the COVID Zero policy had a rational basis. China has a patchwork health system – not bad in some wealthier cities, but poor to non-existent in many parts of the country. In other words, if the country had dropped its guard, tens of thousands of people – running into the millions according to some modelling – would get sick and die. Many elderly men, as long-time smokers, are particularly vulnerable to a respiratory disease. The shield that has allowed other countries to re-open, mass vaccinations, hasn’t proved to be a release valve in China. China’s homemade vaccines aren’t as effective as western ones for starters, but Beijing so far refuses to import any, for nationalistic reasons. (McGregor, 2022).

So when will China re-open? Last week, I would have said not until after the northern winter, and not before the National People’s Congress in March, when a new cabinet will be appointed. And probably not until vaccination rates are up among the elderly, which takes time. But over the weekend, protests began spreading after at least 10 people died in an apartment fire in Urumqi, in Xinjiang. Fire trucks weren’t able to reach the blaze because of strict COVID-19 lockdown protocols. The Chinese internet erupted with fury at the deaths, as though a line had been crossed. In Shanghai, in scenes not seen for decades, protesters gathered at Urumqi Road in the city centre, yelling slogans attacking Xi Jinping and the communist party. It is now clear that further lockdowns will only work with brutal enforcement. The Chinese can put up with a lot, but many have now reached their breaking point. The local internet is full of angry comments from Chinese watching the World Cup in Qatar and being shocked to see such large crowds without masks. If football fans from around the world can do that, they ask, then why can’t we? (McGregor, 2022).

Public anger in China towards widening COVID-19 lockdowns across the country erupted into rare protests in China’s far western Xinjiang region and the country’s capital of Beijing, as nationwide infections set another record. Key points: Residents in Xinjiang’s capital of Urumqi and in Beijing took to the streets to protest against China’s strict COVID-lockdown rules. The head of Urumqi’s fire department says some of the victims of Thursday’s deadly fire were “too weak to rescue themselves” At least 10 compounds in Beijing lifted lockdowns before the announced end date after residents complained. Crowds took to the streets on Friday night in Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi, chanting “End the lockdown!” and pumping their fists in the air, after a deadly fire on Thursday triggered anger over their prolonged COVID-19 lockdown, according to videos circulated on Chinese social media on Friday night. Videos showed people in a plaza singing China’s national anthem with its lyric, “Rise up, those who refuse to be slaves!” while others shouted that they wanted to be released from lockdowns. Reuters verified that the footage was published from Urumqi, where many of its four million residents have been under some of the country’s longest lockdowns, barred from leaving their homes for as long as 100 days. In China’s capital, Beijing, 2,700 kilometres away, some residents under lockdown staged small-scale protests or confronted their local officials over movement restrictions placed on them, with some successfully pressuring authorities into lifting the restrictions ahead of schedule. A crucial spark for the public anger was a fire in a high-rise building in Urumqi that killed 10 people on Thursday night, a case that went viral on social media as many internet users surmised that residents could not escape in time because the building was partially locked down. (ABC, 2022 [ii])

Urumqi officials abruptly held a news conference in the early hours of Saturday to deny COVID-19 measures had hampered escape and rescues. The head of Urumqi’s fire department, Li Wenshend, appeared to shift responsibility for the deaths onto the apartment tower’s residents. “Some residents’ ability to rescue themselves was too weak,” he said. Internet users continued to question the official narrative, with people worried similar situations could happen elsewhere. “The Urumqi fire got everyone in the country upset,” said Sean Li, a resident in Beijing. Urumqi authorities later announced that residents of low-risk areas would be allowed to move freely within their neighbourhoods. Still, many other neighbourhoods remained under lockdown. (ABC, 2022 [ii])

A planned lockdown for his compound, Berlin Aiyue, was called off on Friday after residents protested to their local leader and convinced him to cancel it, negotiations that were captured by a video posted on social media. The residents had caught wind of the plan after seeing workers putting barriers on their gates. “That tragedy could have happened to any of us,” he said. By Saturday evening, at least 10 other compounds lifted lockdown before the announced end date after residents complained, according to a Reuters tally of social media posts by residents. A separate video shared with Reuters showed Beijing residents in an unidentifiable part of the city marching around an open-air car park on Saturday, shouting “End the lockdown”. The Beijing government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday. (ABC, 2022 [ii])

Shanghai protest tonight. People are chanting “down with the Chinese Communist Party” and “step down Xi”. This is happening in cities across the country. Something big is brewing. (Visegrad24, 2022)

By the standards of mass protests abroad or those that took place in Hong Kong three years ago, the numbers across Chinese cities in the past few days are small. A few thousand in some places, a few hundred in others. But in the world’s most advanced surveillance state, group gatherings across different cities to express dissent are extremely rare. Organised, coordinated protests is the number one threat the Communist Party seeks to thwart. And as protests against excessive COVID-zero measures spread from Urumqi in the far west to Shanghai in the east to Guangzhou in the south, it became clear this was no localised flare-up of anger. There were shades of China’s 1989 Tiananmen square protests, which was the last time protesters simultaneously rallied for reforms across different cities. Like those demonstrations, university students at some of the country’s most prestigious institutions this weekend began to gather on campuses. (Birtles, 2022).

Protesters in Beijing openly mocked the COVID control measures, chanting “we want PCR tests, we want to be quarantined”. Police there and in other major cities initially held back instead of racing to extinguish vigils and clear the crowds, although they have made arrests. Authorities may have ordered security forces to allow a bit of public venting because the protest videos have been shared among a population largely supportive of calls to ease the excesses of a three-year ‘People’s War’ against the virus. Since the novel coronavirus was first detected in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019, people in China have tolerated the most restrictive measures in the world for suppressing it. Like in Australia during the COVID-zero period earlier in the pandemic, people in China have largely supported the policies to live without having to worry about the virus. There are many, perhaps even a majority who still do, particularly in smaller cities and rural areas. But as newer variants became less dangerous yet more infectious, the measures to keep suppressing the virus have increasingly encroached on people’s lives. Recurring lockdowns, daily lines for PCR tests, forced quarantine for both infected people and their contacts, homeschooling and an economic slump to accompany it. They are measures that the rest of the world has largely forgotten about (for better or worse, some health experts would argue). (Birtles, 2022).

Hopes that Xi Jinping’s coronation for a third term at a major political congress last month would act as the circuit breaker to ease the most excessive restrictions were realised when his government announced a slight relaxation of measures this month. The world’s most populous nation would still “unswervingly” stick to COVID-zero, state media said, but it would optimise it to rein in the excesses. But as cases shot up, local officials, fearing punishment from above if their districts had outbreaks, instinctively locked residents down. Mass testing that had been reduced in one northern city as part of the changes was quickly restored again. (Birtles, 2022).

The new orders from Beijing were increasingly confused and contradictory. A building fire in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, late last week was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Social videos filmed by neighbours of fire trucks trying to hose the flames from outside the compound because they couldn’t get past lockdown barriers fuelled deep anger. These weren’t the first deaths that the Chinese government’s COVID measures inadvertently contributed to, but they hit a nerve. Especially in a week when viewers, many confined to their apartments watching the World Cup, saw thousands of mask-less fans in Qatar enjoying a degree of normality long lost in COVID-zero China. The contrast was so jarring, the state broadcaster CCTV started censoring close-up shots of fans, instead cutting to other camera feeds showing coaches or wide shots. (Birtles, 2022).

A spokesperson for Foreign Minister Penny Wong told the ABC: “Australia sends its deepest condolences to those who have lost loved ones in the tragic fire in Urumqi.” “Australia strongly supports the right to freedom of expression and peaceful protest without fear of retaliation. “We urge Chinese authorities to engage constructively with protesters and address the concerns they have raised.” (Birtles, 2022).

After three years, with cases across the country now at 40,000 a day and rising, the futility of trying to up-end a nation to keep trying to eliminate the virus is increasingly clear. But that doesn’t mean the one man responsible for commanding the ‘war’ against the pandemic will surrender. Which makes the coming days so unpredictable. (Birtles, 2022).

Last month at the Communist Party Congress, Xi Jinping said his crusade to crush COVID was about putting “people and lives first”, drawing a contrast to other countries that didn’t value life as much. His state media mouthpieces earlier set the tone by telling the nation other countries only live with COVID because they gave up. Only China with its exceptional political system could continue to control it. It’s his biggest legacy to date. (Birtles, 2022).

Politics aside, there is a real fear of mass deaths, particularly among elderly Chinese who have been far more reluctant to get fully vaccinated than in countries like Australia. Despite a recent pledge to step up the vaccination drive among older people, it’s a glaring omission for a government so content to use coercion and surveillance to sustain negligible COVID numbers that it won’t impose vaccine mandates. Fears of an overburdened health system in a country where people go to hospital for even minor ailments is a real concern. Having held on this long, people would expect the reward of a lower death rate when COVID finally does filter through the population. But that might not be possible. With hundreds of thousands of cases this month in cities throughout the nation, China now has the worst of both worlds. China might be slowly exiting its COVID zero strategy With COVID-19 cases and impatience with restrictions both at an all-time high, China is grappling with how to move on from an elimination strategy. Something has to give and moves by local officials across various cities on the weekend to quietly reopen some restricted buildings or reclassify them as ‘low risk’ was a first step. But a broader opening up looks very unlikely anytime soon. And in the days ahead, the biggest danger is for those protesters, many young students, seen to be organising or rallying the crowds. A new generation of officials are filling senior posts in key cities including Shanghai, where some protesters were filmed calling on Xi and the Communist Party to ‘step down’. The city’s relatively youthful deputy party chief Zhuge Yujie is touted as a potential future successor to Xi if he plays his cards right. Like with other ambitious officials in other cities, the way he responds to these protests will help define his career prospects for years to come. If history’s any guide, the Communist Party has rewarded those who use a firm hand. (Birtles, 2022).

Protests against strict Covid measures in China have spilled into a second night and spread to the biggest cities. Demonstrators gathered in the capital Beijing and the financial hub Shanghai. Many held up blank pieces of paper to express their discontent and acknowledge the censorship. Some have, however, gone as far as calling for President Xi Jinping to step down. Millions have been affected by nearly three years of mass testing, quarantines and snap lockdowns. It is very unusual for people to publicly vent their anger at Communist Party leaders in China, where any direct government criticism can result in harsh penalties. The police have largely allowed the rallies to continue, but in Shanghai officers arrested several people and cordoned off streets on Sunday. Hundreds of people gathered on the banks of a river in the capital Beijing for several hours on Sunday, singing the national anthem and listening to speeches. Earlier in Beijing’s prestigious Tsinghua University, dozens held a peaceful protest and sung the national anthem, according to pictures and video posted on social media. (Wong & Williams, 2022).

“In Shanghai - China’s biggest city and a global financial hub - police kept a heavy presence in the area of Wulumuqi Road, where a candlelight vigil the day before turned into protests. The BBC saw police officers, private security guards and plain-clothed police officers on the streets, confronting protesters who assembled for a second day. But in the afternoon, hundreds had come back to the same area with blank sheets of paper to hold what appeared to be a silent protest, an eyewitness told the AFP news agency. During Saturday night’s protest in the city people were heard openly shouting slogans such as “Xi Jinping, step down” and “Communist party, step down”. Such demands are highly unusual in China. But the government appears to have drastically underestimated growing discontent towards the zero-Covid approach, a policy inextricably linked to President Xi who recently pledged there would be no swerving from it. One protester in Shanghai told the BBC that he felt “shocked and a bit excited” to see people out on the streets, calling it the first time he’d seen such large-scale dissent in China. He said lockdowns made him feel “sad, angry and hopeless”, and had left him unable to see his unwell mother, who was undergoing cancer treatment. (Wong & Williams, 2022).

The zero-Covid strategy is the last policy of its kind among the world’s major economies, and is partly due to China’s relatively low vaccination levels and an effort to protect elderly people. Snap lockdowns have caused anger across the country - and Covid restrictions more broadly have trigged recent violent protests from Zhengzhou to Guangzhou. In spite of the stringent measures, China’s case numbers this week hit all-time records since the pandemic began. Taking to the streets in numbers and calling for President Xi to step down was thought to be unthinkable not so long ago. However, after a recent dramatic protest on a Beijing bridge that stunned many, a bar appears to have been set for the expression of more open and sharper dissent. Others have also chosen to wave the Chinese flag and sing the national anthem - its lyrics espousing revolutionary ideals and urging the people to “rise up, rise up”.It is a show of patriotism that could also be read as a pointed expression of solidarity with fellow Chinese suffering under the zero-Covid policy - and a call to action. (Wong & Williams, 2022).

On Thursday, 24 November, 2022, a fire broke out in a residential building in Urumqi, the capital of China’s “Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.”1 The fire killed mostly Uyghur victims and injured many more. These numbers are said to be under-reported, and the tragedy was a result of China’s failed pandemic policy which has severely restricted the movements of everyday citizens and denied their access to basic necessities for prolonged periods of time. While these policies have affected millions of Chinese citizens, Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang region have long suffered from heightened repression, up to and including mass internment and extreme surveillance by the Chinese government. Xinjiang has also seen the most stringent lockdown policies implemented, with many unable to leave their homes for more than a hundred days. In response, Urumqi residents launched an unprecedented city-wide protest on Saturday 26 November, braving the police to surround government buildings and demand an end to the current lockdown policies. These flawed lockdown policies resulted in the compound gates being bolted shut by authorities, such that residents were unable to escape. Protests of different kinds spread across major cities throughout the night. Some took the form of collective and independent mass action, like the student-led vigil in the Communication University of China in Nanjing and the public statement written by medical students from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan. Citizens of Shanghai took to the streets to escalate their action further, chanting slogans like “Down with the CCP! Down with Xi Jinping!”... Students and workers across China are taking to the streets to demand accountability for a “Zero Covid” policy that has seen their rights taken away and their safety placed in danger. Once again, the people of Xinjiang have had to bear the brunt of China’s repressive policies in the horrific Urumqi fire. But now the region with some of the country’s most marginalized has become the spark for what is possibly the largest scale mobilization in Chinese society in years. More urgently than ever, Han Chinese residents of Xinjiang and in other regions of China must continue to center the struggle of Uyghurs and oppressed minorities and fight alongside them (Lausan, 2022).

We demand accountability for the victims of the Urumqi fire, and call for radical systemic change: Demands: Abolish the current lockdowns that forcibly detain people in their homes, denying them of access to basic needs; Abolish forced PCR testing for COVID-19; Allow those who are infected to isolate at home, while those with severe symptoms have the right to treatment in the hospital; cancel forcible transfer and isolation of infected and non-infected individuals in mobile cabin “hospitals”; Provide options for multiple vaccines, allowing individuals the right to choose their own healthcare; Release Sitong Bridge protestor Peng Zaizhou and other political prisoners who are being detained from the protests; Call for nation-wide mourning of the deaths of those caused by irresponsible lockdown measures; Ensure the resignation of bureaucrats responsible for pandemic mismanagement; Pandemic control measures must be informed by medical experts and conducted democratically amongst the people; Safeguard the rights of people to the freedom of speech, assembly, organization, and protest; Support independent workers’ power in and beyond these protests; abolish anti-worker practices like the 996 work schedule and strengthen labor law protections, including protecting workers’ right to strike and self-organization, so they can participate more extensively in political life. (Lausan, 2022).

Strategies: If anyone is threatened by the police, others should stand up to support them. We should not stop others from chanting more radical slogans, but try to prioritize positive and concrete demands for systemic change. Changes in the political authorities within the system would not be useful unless we thoroughly democratize the system itself. Avoid the risky tactic of long-term occupation of streets and town squares—adopt “Be Water”-style mobilization to prevent authorities from too easily clamping down on protesters. Beyond protesting, strengthen mutual aid and self-organization among communities and workplaces. (Lausan, 2022).

The CCP’s tactics of mass detention and surveillance affect many communities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR, also known as “Xinjiang,” “Northwest China,” “East Turkestan,” “Uighuria,” “Ghulja,” “Tarbagai,” “Altay,” “Dzungarstan and Altishahr,” and/or “Dzungaria and the Tarim Basin Region,” and which will henceforth be referred to as “Xinjiang”), most visibly Uyghurs but no less significantly other indigenous and minority ethnic groups. A highly contested term, the proper name Xinjiang (新疆) was first used by the 18th century emperor Qianlong, and conferred on the XUAR upon Zuo Zongtang’s reoccupation of the region in the late 19th century. In Mandarin Chinese, it means “new territory,” “new border,” or “new frontier.” As outsiders, we appreciate being in conversation with comrades on how best to advocate for the liberation of those suffering settler colonial repression in the region. Using accurateterminology to the best of our knowledge and recognizing how the CCP’s campaign of mass detention and cultural genocide impacts numerous communities differently across the XUAR region are important elements of this work. (Lausan, 2022).

Protests against China’s restrictive COVID-19 measures appeared to roil in a number of cities Saturday night, in displays of public defiance fanned by anger over a deadly fire in the western Xinjiang region. Many protests could not be immediately confirmed, but in Shanghai, police used pepper spray to stop around 300 protesters who had gathered at Middle Urumqi Road at midnight, bringing flowers, candles and signs reading “Urumqi, November 24, those who died rest in peace” to memorialise the 10 deaths caused by a fire in an apartment building in Xinjiang’s capital city Urumqi. A protester who gave only his family name, Zhao, said one of his friends was beaten by police and two friends were pepper sprayed. He said police stomped his feet as he tried to stop them from taking his friend away. He lost his shoes in the process, and left the protest barefoot. Zhao says protesters yelled slogans including “Xi Jinping, step down, Communist Party, step down,” “Unlock Xinjiang, unlock China,” “do not want PCR (tests), want freedom” and “press freedom.” Around 100 police stood line by line, preventing some protesters from gathering or leaving, and buses carrying more police arrived later, Zhao said. Another protester, who gave only his family name of Xu, said there was a larger crowd of thousands of demonstrators, but that police stood in the road and let protesters pass on the sidewalk. Posts about the protest were deleted immediately on China’s social media, as China’s Communist Party commonly does to suppress criticism. Earlier Saturday, authorities in the Xinjiang region opened up some neighborhoods in Urumqi after residents held extraordinary late-night demonstrations against the city’s draconian “zero-COVID” lockdown that had lasted more than three months. (Nine, 2022)

Many alleged that obstacles caused by anti-virus measures made the fire worse. It took emergency workers three hours to extinguish the blaze, but officials denied the allegations, saying there were no barricades in the building and that residents were permitted to leave. During Xinjiang’s lockdown, some residents elsewhere in the city have had their doors chained physically shut, including one who spoke to The Associated Press who declined to be named for fear of retribution. Many in Urumqi believe such brute-force tactics may have prevented residents from escaping in Thursday’s fire and that the official death toll was an undercount. Anger boiled over after Urumqi city officials held a press conference about the fire in which they appeared to shift responsibility for the deaths onto the apartment tower’s residents. “Some residents’ ability to rescue themselves was too weak,” said Li Wensheng, head of Urumqi’s fire department. Police clamped down on dissenting voices, announcing the arrest of a 24-year-old woman for spreading “untrue information” about the death toll online. Late Friday, people in Urumqi marched largely peacefully in big puffy winter jackets in the cold winter night. Videos of protests featured people holding the Chinese flag and shouting “Open up, open up.” They spread rapidly on Chinese social media despite heavy censorship. In some scenes, people shouted and pushed against rows of men in the white whole-body hazmat suits that local government workers and pandemic-prevention volunteers wear, according to the videos. By Saturday, most had been deleted by censors. The Associated Press could not independently verify all the videos, but two Urumqi residents who declined to be named out of fear of retribution said large-scale protests occurred Friday night. One of them said he had friends who participated. The AP pinpointed the locations of two of the videos of the protests in different parts of Urumqi. In one video, police in face masks and hospital gowns faced off against shouting protesters. In another, one protester is speaking to a crowd about their demands. It is unclear how widespread the protests were. The demonstrations, as well as public anger online, are the latest signs of building frustration with China’s intense approach to controlling COVID-19.It’s the only major country in the world that still is fighting the pandemic through mass testing and lockdowns. Given China’s vast security apparatus, protests are risky anywhere in the country, but they are extraordinary in Xinjiang, which for years has been the target of a brutal security crackdown. A huge number of Uyghurs and other largely Muslim minorities have been swept into a vast network of camps and prisons, instilling fear that grips the region to this day. Most of the protesters visible in the videos were Han Chinese. A Uyghur woman living in Urumqi said it was because Uyghurs were too scared to take to the streets despite their rage. “Han Chinese people know they will not be punished if they speak against the lockdown,” she said, declining to be named for fear of retaliation against her family. “Uyghurs are different. If we dare say such things, we will be taken to prison or to the camps.”... Many in Xinjiang have been locked down since August. Most have not been allowed to leave their homes, and some have reported dire conditions, including spotty food deliveries that have caused residents to go hungry. On Friday, the city reported 220 new cases, the vast majority of which were asymptomatic. The Uyghur woman in Urumqi said she had been trapped in her apartment since August. 8, and was not even allowed to open her window. On Friday, residents in her neighborhood defied the order, opening their windows and shouting in protest. She joined in. “No more lockdowns! No more lockdowns!” they screamed. (Nine, 2022)

The Uyghur diaspora activists who wanted to campaign more explicitly for an independent “East Turkistan” than the WUC was planning to, made their organisational move a few months later in 2004. They established the East Turkistan Government in Exile (ETGE), at a conference in Washington, DC. The ETGE’s inaugural president was Ahmet Igamberdi, the Australia-based activist who in 1992 had founded the East Turkistan Australian Association (ETAA) and had been a prominent figure at the Istanbul congress that year. (Harrison & Douglas, 2022)

Eastern Turki @EasternTurki @Dolkun_Isa, neither you or @UyghurCongress are qualified to represent the people of East Turkistan. What you and your organization have done all these years severely sabotaged our cause. Stop representing us, stop misleading our people and misinforming the world! #UyghurGenocide 6:28 AM · Oct 10, 2022 ·Twitter Web App (ET, 2022)

Australia sends its deepest condolences to those who lost loved ones in the tragic fire in Urumqi on Friday. Australia strongly supports the right of freedom of expression and peaceful protest without fear of retaliation. We urge Chinese authorities to engage constructively with protesters and address the concerns they have raised.” (Dziedzic, 2022 [ii])

Ostensibly, it’s because of the zero-Covid policy, and the draconian measures taken by the authorities to achieve what is now an entirely unrealistic policy aim, whatever its theoretical attractions may once have been. It is an extremist policy, and should not be necessary to keep Covid cases suppressed at low, manageable levels – particularly at a phase in this post-pandemic environment when less lethal variants are circulating, and when the vaccines are continuing to protect people against the most serious effects of illness. The West – and much of the rest of the world – has found a way to “live with Covid”; without being complacent about it. Testing, isolating, taking modest precautions when needs be –and keeping up with booster jabs. The virus hasn’t gone away, and it’s still a potential killer. But we no longer (at least for the time being) need to impose harsh restrictions on social interaction. Not so, in China. Understandably, many Chinese people are fed up with the continual lockdowns, the removal of freedom to travel and the suppression of debate and dissent online and in officially-approved media. They are rightly feeling oppressed. (O’Grady, 2022)

The one treatment the Chinese people are deprived of in all this isn’t some wonder drug or a better vaccine (though the Chinese versions may not be as effective in combating the different variants as they emerge, compared with the latest Western bivalent vaccines). It’s democracy. It’s the political vaccine that protects people’s human rights; and also protects governments against violent overthrow. We’ve seen its worth in real time throughout the pandemic. President Xi should take note. (O’Grady, 2022)

“Maimaitimin believes that his family were not rescued in time because they were Uyghur and lived in a Uyghur-majority neighbourhood in the city’s Tianshan district. ”I will never trust the Chinese government. If Uyghurs protested, they would choke them dead,” he said. “I think that protesters will be caught, and (Uyghurs) will be put under even stricter control.” (France24, 2022)

Protests against the country’s stringent “zero-COVID” policies flared in cities across China this weekend, in the largest and most sustained show of defiance to Beijing’s rules since the pandemic began. In Shanghai, hundreds gathered on Urumqi Road for a candlelight vigil for the victims of a fire in the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi, which left at least 10 people dead. While much about the blaze remains unclear, reports that residents could not escape in time because of lockdown restrictions have sparked fury across the country. Videos from the scene showed people singing the Chinese national anthem – which includes the line “Arise, you who refuse to be slaves!” – and holding up blank pieces of paper, an increasingly common symbol of protest in China. Others shouted “end the lockdown in Xinjiang,” and called for President Xi Jinping to “step down.” (Griffiths, 2022)

“The Urumqi fire has provided another apparent example of restrictions designed to keep people safe seemingly putting them in more danger. Officials in Xinjiang have denied assertions that residents could not escape Thursday’s deadly high-rise fire because of lockdown measures. But online, unconfirmed photos of padlocked fire escapes and barriers spread widely and many questioned the official narrative and even the death toll.” (Griffiths, 2022)

Campaign for Uyghurs (CFU) is infuriated by the lack of action from local authorities following the November 24th fire that broke out in the Tengritagh neighborhood located in Urumchi, East Turkistan (also known as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region). On Thursday evening, an apartment building caught fire, killing more than 50 people including several young children. Although the CCP state media reported only 10 deaths, the names of at least 20 people have come to light. The Chinese government’s Covid Zero policy has reached a tipping point and after more than 100 days of Uyghur doors being welded shut, people are dying from starvation, lack of medical attention and suicide. According to the New York Times, the fire started on the 15th floor of an apartment building and spread quickly to upper floors. According to locals, the firefighters arrived at the building two hours after the fire started to extinguish the flames, despite their close proximity. Residents of the building had been unable to escape as doors, including emergency exits, were welded shut. Qemernisahan Abdurahman and her children Nehdiye and Imran were among those who died. Widespread protests have erupted across China and within Urumchi against Covid Zero and in support of the victims of the fire. Chinese residents took to the streets chanting ”we are human beings” and ”stop the lockdown”. The protests have spread worldwide with Uyghurs, Tibetans, and Chinese alike holding candlelight vigils, protesting in front of Chinese embassies as well as public squares. The protests within China have been met with brutality and police forces have beaten and arrested protesters, as well as BBC journalists. An unverified video shows Chinese police forces firing on Uyghur protesters in Urumchi. CFU supports these protesters and their aims to restore their freedoms that have been taken through an unscientific and dangerous public health policy. CFU Executive Director Rushan Abbas said “My sincere prayers go to the ones that perished in the horrific fire and my deepest condolences to their family members. This fire and its victims were an inevitable result of China’s draconian quarantines, and represents the many victims of these policies. These lockdowns have been used by the Chinese regime with callous disregard for people’s lives, and no end in sight. We call for our leaders to take tangible action and hold Beijing responsible for the continuous genocidal policies in our homeland.” As a result of China’s complete neglect of its responsibilities and disregard for the Uyghur people, CFU asks immediate action from the international community and demands that the Chinese government immediately cease the severe COVID-related lockdowns and the violent repression of protesters. (CU, 2022)

Most of the protesters visible in videos online were Han Chinese, in a city home to 10 million mainly Muslim Uyghurs. One Uyghur woman living in Urumqi said that was because Uyghurs were too scared to take to the streets despite their rage. “Han Chinese people know they will not be punished if they speak against the lockdown,” she said, declining to be named for fear of retaliation against her family. “Uyghurs are different. If we dare say such things, we will be taken to prison or to the camps.” Rights groups and Western governments have long accused Beijing of abuses against Uyghurs, including forced labour in internment camps. China strongly rejects such claims. (ABC, 2022 [iii]).

The Friday fire in the city of Urumqi is at the heart of some of the most widespread protests in China since the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989. Demonstrators blame the blaze on China’s strict pandemic restrictions, claiming locked doors hampered efforts to fight or escape the flames — a charge local officials have denied. But Maimaitimin says these kinds of tragedies are all too common for members of China’s Uyghur minority. Maimaitimin says he first learned about the fire on social media. “At first I just cannot believe that happened in the building that my aunt lives in,” he said. “And then I thought that even if there is a fire, then they are going to put out the fire and rescue them.” He was able to get in touch with a friend who lives nearby. That’s how he learned the family had died. Uyghurs are a mostly Muslim ethnic minority in China, where they face widespread surveillance, discrimination and detention. Human rights organizations estimate that China has locked more than one million Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in detention camps, where the United Nations has reported allegations of torture and abuse. The Chinese government has repeatedly denied targeting or abusing Uyghurs, and calls the detention facilities “training centres.” Several of Maimaitimin’s relatives, including his father, have been detained, according to NPR. (Goodyear, 2022).

“Videos on social media showed people couldn’t leave during this fire,” Merhaba Muhammad, Maimaitimin’s sister in Turkey, told Newsweek. “Maybe if they were able to leave their homes, my aunt and her children could have escaped.”... Urumqi officials have denied that COVID restrictions played a role in the deaths, saying the apartment was in a ow-risk area, and residents were freely able to leave their homes. Instead, they said parked cars and bollards hampered firefighters trying to put out the flames. “Some residents’ ability to rescue themselves was too weak,” Li Wensheng, head of Urumqi’s fire department, said during a press conference. Maimaitimin calls the official narrative “nonsense.” He says abuse and neglect are rampant by officials in communities were Uyghurs live and work, and questioned whether things would have gone differently had the fire happened in another city. “There is an ongoing, very systematic and state-sponsored genocide against the [Uyghur] people in that region,” he said. “The Chinese government itself has no intention to rescue the Uyghur people.” The Canada-based organization Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project [URAP] issued a statement about the fire, accusing China of using its COVID policies to “target and control Uyghurs.” (Goodyear, 2022).

The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted everyone around the world but particularly Uygurs because, from the beginning, as we know from 2017 millions of Uygurs have been locked in concentration camps and even throughout Covid we haven’t heard about their conditions and we know the conditions inside are extremely horrible, the hygiene is very poor, so it is a breeding ground for virus to spread. (ABC, 2022)

In very recent months Uygurs have been living in very harsh Covid lockdown. Hundreds days of being interned in their own homes without being allowed to leave, with very limited access to medical care... the recent fire, which we have proof from local residents that... over 40 people have died in that fire because of these lockdowns where people were not allowed even during that fire to escpe their homes. (ABC, 2022)

It is certainly our hope that it will certainly bring the voices of Uygurs at the forefront. We are extremely happy to see that there is a massive movement at the momeny by protestors from all around the world but specifically protestors in China led led by students who are standing in solidarity with Uygurs but we have to also be careful not to forget about Uygurs and wonder why there are no Uygur protestors on the streets and this is because of the oppression that is going on, the systemic racism and discrimination against the Uygur people because they know that if they go in the streets they will be interned, they will be retailiation against them, so in these protest movement I hope that we can all remember why Uygurs are left behind. (ABC, 2022)

I’m here in Australia to specifically ask the Australian government (and policy makers) to take changeable actions to end this ongoing Uygur genocide because Australia is a freely democractic state which is actually committed to defending human rights in a multilateral space such as the UN. But Australia is lagging behind when you compare to countries like Canada, US, the UK and even European countries. We have 9 different democratic bodies around thw world which have recognized the Uygur genocide but Australia is not one of them and so in this trip I’m, we’re hoping to, that the Australian government can take concrete actions and these concrete actions include, with the modern slavery acts review , you know, having a firm legislation that tackle the issue of modern slavery but specifically Uygur forced labor in recognizing that there needs to be a halt on imports that are being produced by Uygur forced labor. The other thing is to also impose Magnitsky style sanctions on Chinese officials who are being responsible for the ongoing genocide. As the Australian government has recently imposed these sanctions on Russian officials. So these are the... complete demands that we have asked the Australian government. (ABC, 2022)

Of course supply chains can be very complicated but at this moment we are talking about massive crimes, we’re talking about international crimes including genocide and crimes against humanity. And when the ground you’re operating on , there are so many red flags then as a business you have to start asking questions, you have to be willing to dig a little deeper and if you are bing challenged then you have to know that, um, you know, that independent audits can, there’s no, um, there’s no this in the region because workers are not free to speak their minds. Um, and I think that we know that one out of five cotton garments are produced with Uygur forced labor because 84% of China’s cotton comes from our region which is tainted highly with forced labor and its the same in the solar industry with polysilicon which actually the region is a supplier for the global supply chain so with all of these indicators, businesses, governments have a responsibility to take changeable action to address and look into these supply chains. (ABC, 2022)