CFU PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 5, 2026
Contact: contact@campaignforuyghurs.org
https://campaignforuyghurs.org/
CFU Honors Ghulja Massacre Victims 29 Years Later
Washington, D.C. – On February 5, 2026, Campaign for Uyghurs (CFU) solemnly commemorates the 29th anniversary of the Ghulja Massacre, when Chinese security forces brutally suppressed and killed peaceful Uyghur protesters demanding fundamental human rights and freedoms. The massacre stands as a harrowing precursor to the systematic genocide now unfolding against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in East Turkistan.
In the months preceding February 5, 1997, Chinese authorities banned meshrep, traditional Uyghur social gatherings that fostered community cohesion and cultural identity. On February 5th, 1997, thousands of young Uyghurs gathered in Ghulja to peacefully protest Chinese aggression and the prohibition of meshrep. Chinese security forces responded with merciless violence, killing hundreds of people and injuring countless others. In the aftermath, nearly 4,000 Uyghurs were arrested, tortured, killed, and 200 were publicly executed.
“The Ghulja Massacre was a pivotal moment when the world could have recognized China’s trajectory toward genocide and chose silence instead,” Rushan Abbas, Founder and Executive Director of CFU. “That silence emboldened the CCP to expand its crimes into the systematic atrocities we witness today, mass detention and imprisonment, extrajudicial sentencing, forced sterilizations, family separations, state-imposed forced labor, and cultural erasure. Every year without accountability reinforces Beijing’s belief that it can continue to commit genocide with impunity and expand to threatening the future of the free world.”
CFU honors the memory of those lost in the Ghulja Massacre and reaffirms its commitment to justice for all Uyghurs facing persecution. We urge governments worldwide to recognize China’s broader threat to humanity, move beyond statements, and take concrete action through enforcing existing sanctions, passing legislation addressing forced labor and transnational repression, and opposing Beijing’s economic coercion that suppresses criticism.
