Washington, DC, May 6 (ANI) — The East Turkistan Government-in-Exile (ETGE) and the East Turkistan National Movement (ETNM) have submitted a petition to the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonisation requesting that the territory commonly called Xinjiang by China be inscribed as a Non-Self-Governing Territory, the ETGE said in a release.
The groups said this is the first formal request of its kind to that UN committee and asked it to recommend inscription to the UN General Assembly. They argue that such a listing would trigger an international decolonisation framework obliging the United Nations to oversee East Turkistan’s process of self-determination. The ETGE also said no state or entity has previously challenged China as a colonial power before any UN body.
Referring to the region as East Turkistan, the petition maintains the area once functioned as an independent state—the East Turkistan Republic—before what the petitioners describe as China’s 1949 invasion and occupation. The ETGE said Chinese control was never legitimised by a treaty of cession, plebiscite or other expression of the local population’s free will.
The filing highlights long-term demographic shifts, saying the share of Chinese settlers rose from under 5 percent to more than 42 percent of the population while the native Turkic share fell from over 90 percent to about 55 percent.
“More than eighty nations achieved their independence through the decolonisation framework,” Mamtimin Ala is quoted as saying in the ETGE statement. “Today, the peoples of East Turkistan formally assert that same right before the United Nations.”
The ETGE also alleged that genocidal policies targeting Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and other Turkic groups have continued for a thirteenth year, citing an August 2022 Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) finding that abuses in the region “may constitute crimes against humanity.” The release noted that the United States and several Western parliaments have characterised the abuses as genocide or crimes against humanity.
The petition says the International Criminal Court has not opened a formal investigation despite multiple evidence submissions since 2020 and sets out alleged ongoing violations including mass internment, forced sterilisation, family separations and forced labour transfers. It cites Chinese development plans projecting 13.75 million labour transfers between 2021 and 2025 and says UN Special Rapporteurs in January 2026 warned actual numbers may have exceeded projections and could amount to enslavement.
“The ongoing genocide is rooted in China’s colonial occupation of East Turkistan,” ETGE leader Salih Hudayar said in the release. “Decolonisation and the restoration of our independence is the only effective guarantee of our people’s survival.”
The ETGE pointed to recent Chinese legislation — including a law adopted by the National People’s Congress on March 12, 2026 — which the group says institutionalises cultural assimilation under an “ethnic unity” framework. According to the petition, its eight main demands include that the UN General Assembly designate the People’s Republic of China as an occupying power in East Turkistan, affirm the right to self-determination and independence for the territory, and address China’s conflict of interest as a permanent UN Security Council member involved in decolonisation matters.
The ETGE said the petition aims to renew international attention to East Turkistan as part of broader global decolonisation efforts.
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