WASHINGTON D.C, Jan 13(PR) – The East Turkistan Government in Exile (ETGE), a Washington, D.C.-based organization representing Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic peoples from the Xinjiang region (which it refers to as Occupied East Turkistan), has issued a statement expressing full solidarity with the self-declared Republic of Somaliland.
In the statement, the ETGE describes Somaliland — a Muslim-majority entity that declared independence from Somalia in 1991 and has since developed stable democratic institutions through what it calls a legitimate decolonization process — as pursuing a parallel struggle for external self-determination.
The ETGE draws parallels between Somaliland’s quest and its own advocacy against what it terms China’s 76-year colonial occupation of East Turkistan, which began on December 22, 1949. It accuses Beijing of conducting an ongoing genocide against Turkic Muslims, intensified since May 2014, involving mass detentions, forced labor, sterilization, organ harvesting, family separations, and the destruction of religious, linguistic, and cultural identity.
As an anti-colonial government-in-exile, the ETGE denounces persistent colonial structures oppressing Muslim peoples and denying their right to sovereignty. It emphasizes that both struggles align with international law, UN decolonization principles, and self-determination rights — principles endorsed by China and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in other contexts.
The statement sharply criticizes the OIC and several member states for what it calls profound hypocrisy: while claiming to defend Muslim rights and dignity, the organization has repeatedly endorsed China’s policies in East Turkistan as “counter-terrorism” and “de-radicalization,” thereby legitimizing occupation, genocide, and denial of self-determination. This stance, influenced by economic and political ties to Beijing, has suppressed accountability efforts and betrayed core Islamic values of justice and protection for the vulnerable, according to the ETGE.
The group describes China’s actions in East Turkistan as the most severe systematic persecution of a Muslim population in history.
The ETGE urges the OIC and its members to apply consistent standards by condemning the alleged genocide, recognizing East Turkistan as occupied territory, supporting ICC accountability (including the ETGE’s existing complaint), and providing moral, political, and material backing for East Turkistan’s independence and decolonization.
It further condemns China’s broader efforts to undermine self-determination movements among occupied or colonized peoples, including those in East Turkistan, Tibet, Southern Mongolia, Somaliland, and Taiwan.
The ETGE, established in 2004 and unrecognized internationally, positions itself as the democratically elected representative of East Turkistan’s people, advocating for the restoration of independence as a pluralistic republic.
