CFU PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 5 2023, 5:00 PM ET

Sabrina Sohail: sabrina@campaignforuyghurs.org

(650) 703-4523

www.campaignforuyghurs.org

During the 81st Press Conference on the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), which took place on Dec 30th, 2022 (Beijing, China), ‘Elijan Anayat’, the “spokesperson of the People’s Government of XUAR”, attacked the author of the “Xinjiang Police Files” (XPF), a cache of previously concealed police files from East Turkistan which has uncovered grueling details about the Chinese government’s systemic internment of Uyghurs. The Leading researcher, and senior fellow at the Victims of Communism memorial foundation (VOC), Dr. Adrian Zenz, has described it as “most likely the largest incarceration of an ethno-religious minority since the Holocaust.”

Elijan Anayat said “First, Adrian Zenz has long been notorious in the world. He is a member of… a far right-wing organization funded by the US government and once known as the shelter of new Nazis, fascists and anti-Semitic extremists…. He believes that he has a sense of mission to oppose China and is “led by God to do this”. With such an evil intention, he published a number of Xinjiang-related reports and remarks, which are actually all based on speculation, imagination and conjecture, thus completely unjustified…. And this time, Adrian Zenz is doing his old tricks again to play up the so-called Xinjiang Police Files, which just further exposes his conspiracy of destabilizing Xinjiang.”

Dr. Adrian Zenz found it interesting that the Chinese State does not state that the XPF themselves are fabricated; they only attack Zenz’s interpretation of the files. This implies that the files were in fact derived from ‘Xinjiang police’ computers and indirectly confirms that the files depict actual Uyghur people. During the press conference, they name two people, ‘Nurgul Abdukerim’, 24, who, according to the XPF was detained for “listening to illegal ‘Taiblik’ (religious lecture)” and ‘Emetjan Rozi’ 47, according to the XPF was interned for “re-education” for “holding religious extremism thoughts before the crackdown, not eating at a funeral (nazir) which are baseless accusations and do not warrant a person to be “re-educated” simply for what they believe. 

Dr. Adrian Zenz responds “This is the second time that the Chinese state has commented on the Xinjiang Police Files, they (XPF) were also featured on three-page of response to the UN report. They (Chinese state) claim that the two vocational skills and education training centers that I discuss in my research paper are now just regular vocational schools and they show updated images of the facilities. and we know that they were de-securitized and it does show that one of them is located right next to the detention center. Overall, I think this is at least an indirect confirmation, of course not direct admission, that these are actually government files. It just shows the significance of this type of evidence, which the Chinese state finds very difficult to refute, also I think because of the abundance of evidence, as I had mentioned in my research paper, the authenticity of the data is linked to the fact that there is so much material, including so much visual and image material, which makes it basically impossible to refute its authenticity.”

During the same conference, baseless lies were spread in response to the documentary “In Search of My Sister” where Executive Director Rushan Abbas’ was attacked for her advocacy for her illegally and arbitrarily detained sister Dr. Gulshan Abbas and the Uyghur people. You can read the full PR here.