CFU PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 16, 2026
Contact: contact@campaignforuyghurs.org
https://campaignforuyghurs.org/

New Witness Testimony Provides Further Evidence of the Ongoing Uyghur Genocide

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the reality of the Uyghur genocide is once again confirmed by new evidence. New exclusive research from the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC), based on an eyewitness account from former Xinjiang police officer Zhang Yabo, confirms that detentions and forced labor continue to this day. 

Brought to light by Dr. Adrian Zenz, Senior Fellow and Director of China Studies at VOC, Zhang’s testimony lays bare, in disturbing detail, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) system of brutal coercion and mass abuses inflicted on the Uyghur people. As a former police officer who served in the Uyghur region from 2014 to 2023, Zhang confirms a pattern of routine beating, torture, and rape. Zhang also estimates that between 2017 and 2019, roughly a quarter of the adults in his village were detained in concentration camps, not including those sent to formal prisons. These are consistent with the very facts that led to the designation of China’s activities as genocide or crimes against humanity by the United States, Canada, and the U.K., among others.

Zhang also reinforced evidence of state-imposed forced labor in the Uyghur region, speaking on his supervision of forced labor transfers from 2018 to 2020, detailing the confiscation of IDs, strict prohibitions on prayer and any religious expression, and detention of those who did not comply with the coercive programs. In 2024 alone, Chinese government data recorded 3.34 million instances where individuals were forcibly transferred and placed into work. 

“The Xi Jinping regime’s aim to erase the Uyghur civilization remains. Zhang’s testimony confirms that the system of detention, forced labor, and abuse has not ended; it has simply been normalized and hidden behind layers of denial. My own sister, Dr. Gulshan Abbas, a retired medical doctor, has been unjustly imprisoned since 2018 on sham charges. It breaks me to imagine that Gulshan could be one of the countless victims that Zhang’s testimony described,” said Rushan Abbas, Executive Director of Campaign for Uyghurs. “We owe Zhang a debt of gratitude for his bravery in puncturing Beijing’s wall of disinformation and the Victims of Communism’s work to bring these facts to light. These findings provide further evidence that the international community can no longer claim uncertainty or lack of proof.”   

Zhang’s testimony is highlighted today in Foreign Policy, Sourcing Journal, The Spectator, and Der Spiegel.  

CFU calls on the international community, including governments, human rights bodies, and civil society organizations, to act on this trail of evidence.  There is nowhere China can hide, and no excuses for the ongoing Uyghur genocide. The world must stand with those who speak the truth about China’s crimes and all authoritarian governments’ oppression of their people.