East Turkestan is a loosely-defined geographical and historical region in the western provinces of the People's Republic of China, which varies in meaning by context and usage. The term was coined in the 19th century by Russian Turkologists, including Nikita Bichurin, who intended the name to replace the common Western term for the region, Chinese Turkestan, which referred to the Tarim Basin in the southwestern part of Xinjiang during the Qing dynasty. The medieval Persian toponym "Turkestan" and its derivatives were used by the local population as early as the 7th century. Historical manuscripts, dating back to the 7th and 9th century, found in the Turpan and Khotan regions, show that the name Turkestan was used to describe the region. The opening of the 11th century literary work Kutadgu Bilig by Kara-Khanid statesman Yusuf Khass Hajib also describes the region as Turkestan. Beginning in the 17th century, Altishahr, which means "Six Cities" in Uyghur, became the Uyghur name for the Tarim Basin. Uyghurs also called the Tarim Basin "Yettishar," which means "Seven Cities," and even "Sekkizshahr", which means "Eight Cities" in Uyghur. Chinese dynasties from the Han dynasty to the Tang dynasty had called an overlapping area the "Western Regions". The parts of this area conquered by the Manchu Qing Dynasty were termed "Xinjiang" from the 18th century on.
The Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) which has often been confused as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and other names, is a Uyghur Islamic extremist organization founded in Pakistan by Hasan Mahsum. Its stated goals are to establish an Islamic state in Xinjiang and Central Asia, and eventually a Caliphate. The United States removed the "East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM)," which had been confused as the "East Turkistan Islamic Party / Turkistan Islamic Party," from its list of Terrorist Organizations in 2020, claiming it ceased to exist. However, the U.S. State Department later stated that "ETIM was removed from the list because, for more than a decade, there has been no credible evidence that ETIM continues to exist as the same organization that was conducting terrorist attacks in Syria at the time of their designation." The U.S. State Department further stated that "Uyghur terrorists fighting in Syria and Afghanistan are members of the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP)"and that the TIP is "a separate organization that China and others have incorrectly identified as ETIM."
The East Turkestan independence movement is a political movement that seeks the independence of East Turkestan, a large and sparsely-populated region in northwest China, as a nation state for the Uyghur people. The region is currently administered as a province-level subdivision of the People's Republic of China (PRC), under the official name Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Within the movement, there is widespread support for the region to be renamed, since "Xinjiang" is seen by independence activists as a colonial name. "East Turkestan" is the best-known proposed name as it is the historical geographic name of the region and the name of the two independent states that briefly existed in the region in the first half of the 20th century.
The East Turkestan Liberation Organization (ETLO) was a secessionist Uyghur organization that advocated for an independent Uyghur state named East Turkestan in the Western Chinese province known as Xinjiang. The organization was established in Turkey in 1990 or 1996 to fight against the Chinese government in Xinjiang, a territory of ethnic Uyghur majority. ETLO is a designated terrorist organization by the governments of China, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.
The Uyghur American Association is a prominent Uyghur American non-profit advocacy organization based in Washington, D. C. in the United States. It was established in 1998 by a group of Uyghur overseas activists to raise the public awareness of the Uyghur people, who primarily reside in Xinjiang, China, also known as East Turkestan. The Uyghur American Association is an affiliate organization of the World Uyghur Congress and works to promote the Uyghur culture and improved human rights conditions for Uyghurs.
Hasan Mahsum, also known as Abu-Muhammad al-Turkestani and Ashan Sumut, was the leader of the Islamic extremist group Turkistan Islamic Party and suspected of having ties with Al Qaeda. He was shot dead in a counter-terrorism operation on October 2, 2003 by the Pakistani Army.
Terrorism in China refers to the use or threatened use of violence to effect political or ideological change in the People's Republic of China. The definition of terrorism differs among scholars, between international and national bodies and across time and there is no legally binding definition internationally. In the cultural setting of China, the term is relatively new and ambiguous.
The 2008 Uyghur unrest is a loose name for incidents of communal violence by Uyghur people in Hotan and Qaraqash county of Western China, with incidents in March, April, and August 2008. The protests were spurred by the death in police custody of Mutallip Hajim.
The 2008 Kashgar attack occurred on the morning of 4 August 2008, in the city of Kashgar in the Western Chinese province of Xinjiang. According to Chinese government sources, it was a terrorist attack perpetrated by two men with suspected ties to the Uyghur separatist movement. The men reportedly drove a truck into a group of approximately 70 jogging police officers, and proceeded to attack them with grenades and machetes, resulting in the death of sixteen officers.
The July 2009 Ürümqi riots were a series of violent riots over several days that broke out on 5 July 2009 in Ürümqi, the capital city of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), in northwestern China. The first day's rioting, which involved at least 1,000 Uyghurs, began as a protest, but escalated into violent attacks that mainly targeted Han people. A total of 197 people died, most of whom were Han people or non-Muslim minorities, with 1,721 others injured and many vehicles and buildings destroyed. Many Uyghurs disappeared during wide-scale police sweeps in the days following the riots; Human Rights Watch (HRW) documented 43 cases and said figures for real disappearances were likely to be much higher.
The World Uyghur Congress (WUC) is an international organization of exiled Uyghur groups that claims to "represent the collective interest of the Uyghur people" both inside and outside of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. The World Uyghur Congress claims to be a nonviolent and peaceful movement that opposes what it considers to be the Chinese "occupation" of 'East Turkestan' and advocates rejection of totalitarianism, religious intolerance and terrorism as an instrument of policy. The Congress is funded in part by the National Endowment for Democracy or NED of the United States. It has been designated as a terrorist organization by China since 2003 for conspiring with separatists and religious extremists to plan terror attacks.
The 2011 Kashgar attacks were a series of knife and bomb attacks in Kashgar, Xinjiang, China on July 30 and 31, 2011. On July 30, two Uyghur men hijacked a truck, killed its driver, and drove into a crowd of pedestrians. They got out of the truck and stabbed six people to death and injured 27 others. One of the attackers was killed by the crowd; the other was brought into custody. On July 31, a chain of two explosions started a fire at a downtown restaurant. A group of armed Uyghur men killed two people inside of the restaurant and four people outside, injuring 15 other people. Police shot five suspects dead, detained four, and killed two others who initially escaped arrest.
The Barin uprising or Barin riot was an armed conflict between Uyghur militants and Chinese government forces from 4 to 10 April 1990 in the township of Barin in Xinjiang, China. Violence began on the evening of 4 April, when a group of 200 to 300 Uyghur men attempted to breach the gates of the local government office in a protest against forced abortions of Uyghur women and Chinese rule in Xinjiang. The arrival of 130 armed police to quell the unrest was immediately met with armed resistance by militants among the crowd. Initial clashes that evening left six policemen dead and 13 wounded. The militants also captured five policemen, while the armed police captured 19 militants.
The 2012 Yecheng attack was a terrorist attack by Uyghur separatist extremists that occurred on February 28, 2012, in Yecheng, Xinjiang, a remote town situated about 150 miles from China's border with Pakistan. Details of the attack are disputed: according to Chinese government reports and court documents, at around 6 p.m. that day, a group of eight Uyghur men led by religious extremist Abudukeremu Mamuti attacked pedestrians with axes and knives on Happiness Road. Local police fought with the attackers, ultimately killing all and capturing Mamuti. State-run media reported that one police officer died and four police were injured, while 15 pedestrians died from Mamuti's assault and 14 more civilians were injured. Chinese officials characterized the event as a "terrorist attack."
On 24 April 2013, ethnic clashes occurred in Marelbeshi (Bachu), Xinjiang, China. The violence left at least 21 people dead, including 15 police and officials.
The Xinjiang conflict, also known as the East Turkistan conflict, Uyghur–Chinese conflict or Sino-East Turkistan conflict, is an ongoing ethnic geopolitical conflict in what is now China's far-northwest autonomous region of Xinjiang also known as East Turkistan. It is centred around the Uyghurs, a Turkic ethnic group who constitute a plurality of the region's population.
On 28 October 2013, a car ran over pedestrians and crashed in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China, in a terrorist suicide attack. Five people died in the incident; three inside the vehicle and two others nearby. Police identified the driver as Usmen Hasan and the two passengers as his wife, Gulkiz Gini, and his mother, Kuwanhan Reyim. An additional 38 people were injured.
On 30 April 2014, a bomb-and-knife attack occurred in the Chinese city of Ürümqi, Xinjiang. The terrorist attack killed 3 people, and injured 79 others. The attack coincided with the conclusion of a visit by Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party to the region.
On the early morning of Wednesday, 30 July 2014, Juma Tahir, the imam of China's largest mosque, the Id Kah Mosque in northwestern Kashgar, was stabbed to death by three young male Uyghur extremists. Religious leaders across denominations condemned the attack.
The 2014 Yarkant attacks occurred in Yarkant County in Xinjiang on 28 July. Authorities stated that an armed gang of masked militants carried out attacks against civilians as well as local police across towns in the county.
