The Uyghurs, alternatively spelled Uighurs, Uygurs or Uigurs, are a Turkic ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central Asia and East Asia. The Uyghurs are recognized as the titular nationality of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Northwest China. They are one of China's 55 officially recognized ethnic minorities.
The Id Kah Mosque is a historic mosque and tourist site located in Kashgar, Xinjiang, China.
Muhammad Amin Bughra, sometimes known by his Han name Mao Deming and his Turkish name Mehmet Emin Buğra (1901–1965), was a Uyghur Muslim leader who planned to set up a sovereign state, the First East Turkestan Republic. Muhammad Amin Bughra was a Jadidist.
Shule County, also known as Yengisheher County or Yengixahar County, is a county of Kashgar Prefecture, in Xinjiang, China. It is located to the south of Kashgar. In ancient times, the Shule area was once the home to a Xiyu oasis civilisation, the Shule Kingdom.
Abdurehim Tileshüp Ötkür was a popular Uyghur author and poet who is considered the "father of modern Uyghur poetry".
Lutpulla Mutellip, also known as Qaynam Orkishi, Lutun, or Li Mutalifu (Chinese:黎·穆塔里甫), was a Uyghur poet and journalist. He is considered one of the most important figures in modern Uyghur literature. Although he died young at the age of 22, he had a strong influence on modern Uyghur literature and especially on Uyghur poetry. His poems are reputed for the beauty of his language. "Response to Years" is considered to be his poetic masterpiece and "Thoughtful Blessings" is another one of his most famous works.
Kashgar or Kashi is a city in the Tarim Basin region of southern Xinjiang, China. It is one of the westernmost cities of China, located near the country's border with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. For over 2,000 years, Kashgar was a strategically important oasis on the Silk Road between China, the Middle East, and Europe. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and has a population of 711,300 people. Kashgar's urban area covers 15 km2 (5.8 sq mi), although its administrative area extends over 555 km2 (214 sq mi).
The Kumul Rebellion was a rebellion of Kumulik Uyghurs from 1931 to 1934 who conspired with Hui Chinese Muslim General Ma Zhongying to overthrow Jin Shuren, governor of Xinjiang. The Kumul Uyghurs were loyalists of the Kumul Khanate and wanted to restore the heir to the Khanate and overthrow Jin. The Kuomintang wanted Jin removed because of his ties to the Soviet Union, so it approved of the operation while pretending to acknowledge Jin as governor. The rebellion then catapulted into large-scale fighting as Khotanlik Uyghur rebels in southern Xinjiang started a separate rebellion for independence in collusion with Kirghiz rebels. The various groups of rebels were not united. The main part of the war was waged by Ma Zhongying against the Xinjiang government. He was supported by Chiang Kai-shek, the Premier of China, who secretly agreed to let Ma seize Xinjiang.
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 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."
Abduweli Ayup is a Western educated linguist and poet who operated Uyghur language schools in Kashgar, Xinjiang, in the northwest part of China. The Uyghur Human Rights Project published his biography in Resisting Chinese Linguistic Imperialism: Abduweli Ayup and the Movement for Uyghur Mother Tongue-Based Education.
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.
Turkic peoples began settling in the Tarim Basin in the 7th century. The area was later settled by the Turkic Uyghurs, who founded the Qocho Kingdom there in the 9th century. The historical area of what is modern-day Xinjiang in China consisted of the distinct areas of the Tarim Basin and Dzungaria. The area was first populated by the Tocharians and the Saka, who were Indo-Europeans and practiced Buddhism. The Tocharian and Saka peoples came under Xiongnu and then Chinese rule during the Han dynasty as the Protectorate of the Western Regions due to wars between the Han dynasty and the Xiongnu. The First Turkic Khaganate conquered this region in 560, and in 603, after a series of civil wars, the First Turkic Khaganate was separated into the Eastern Turkic Khaganate and the Western Turkic Khaganate, with Xinjiang coming under the latter. The region then became part of the Tang dynasty as the Protectorate General to Pacify the West after the Tang campaigns against the Western Turks. The Tang dynasty withdrew its control of the region in the Protectorate General to Pacify the West and the Four Garrisons of Anxi after the An Lushan Rebellion, after which the Turkic peoples and the other native inhabitants living in the area gradually converted to Islam following the Muslim conquest of Central Asia.
Ablajan Awut Ayup is a singer, songwriter and dancer who wrote over 400 songs and was known for promoting Uyghur culture and identity as well as singing bilingual songs, in both Chinese and Uyghur. In 2017, BBC portrayed him as a model of integration for his appeal to both Han and Uyghur audiences.
Since 2014, the government of the People's Republic of China has committed a series of ongoing human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim minorities in Xinjiang which has often been characterized as persecution or as genocide. There have been reports of mass arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, mass surveillance, cultural and religious persecution, family separation, forced labor, sexual violence, and violations of reproductive rights.
Ghulam Osman Yaghma is a Canadian Uyghur politician, independence leader, writer, and poet who served as the President of the East Turkistan Government-in-Exile from November 2019 to November 2023.
Ahmatjan Osman, also spelled Ekhmetjan, Exmetjan or Ahmetcan, is a Uyghur poet and Uyghur independence activist who writes in both Uyghur and Arabic. A leader of the Uyghur New Poetry (gungga) movement in the 1980s, he is considered one of the "foremost Uyghur poets of his generation". His use of free verse was influential in subsequent Uyghur poetics. His poetry has been described as trying to "capture the sacred and philosophical, the ineffable and the transient, in a wholly unique lyric voice".
Perhat Tursun is a Uyghur writer and poet. He is considered to be one of the most notable modern Uyghur writers. In January 2018, he was seized by Chinese authorities from Urumqi and was later reported to have been sentenced to 16 years of imprisonment.
Darren Byler is an American anthropologist and author. He is assistant professor of International Studies at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada. Byler specializes in the Uyghurs in China and has written about the ongoing oppression of the ethnic group in China, such as through the Xinjiang internment camps.
The OHCHR Assessment of human rights concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China is a report published on 31 August 2022 by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) concerning the treatment of Uyghurs and other largely Muslim groups in China. The report concluded that "[t]he extent of arbitrary and discriminatory detention of members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim groups, pursuant to law and policy, in context of restrictions and deprivation more generally of fundamental rights enjoyed individually and collectively, may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity." Human rights commissioner Michelle Bachelet released the report shortly before leaving the office.
