BRUSSELS DECLARATION

The International Uyghur Forum was successfully completed in Brussels, Belgium on November 9-10 hosted by the World Uyghur Congress, Hasene International and the International Union of East Turkistan Organisations. We express our gratitude to the esteemed speakers and all of our guests at the Forum, who have made practical and productive contributions to our programme and drew attention to China’s brutal human rights violations, which have continued since the beginning of its occupation of East Turkistan, and which today constitute crimes against humanity and genocide, and by pointing out the urgent steps that must be taken in the political, legal and social fields. 

The International Uyghur Forum in Brussels evaluated the following ongoing issues in East Turkistan:

• East Turkistan has been subjected to exploitation and assimilation during its 73-year Chinese occupation. In this process, East Turkistan has been exposed to genocidal and brutal crimes aimed at the mass annihilation of the Uyghur, Kazakh and other Turkic Muslim peoples in the region.
• In 2014, concentration camps, police state order, forced sterilisation,  the targeting of East Turkistan’s  peoples’ ethnic and religious identities, forced labour schemes, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial detentions and executions,  travel bans, isolation of the region,  destruction of the demographic regional structure  through the resettlement of Chinese people into the region, and other genocidal policies have been planned, managed, and executed by the central government of the Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and particularly Xi Jinping.
• Reports and documents published by research institutes, human rights organisations, and news agencies from around the world have documented the ongoing genocide in the region in all of its characteristics and details. 
• On August 31st the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights issued an independent assessment on the human rights violations in East Turkistan. It concluded that the Chinese policies targeting the ethnic and religious identities of the Uyghur and other peoples in East Turkistan have now reached proportions that “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity”, and it made recommendations to the international community, including to the UN member states, private sector and international organisations. 
• In 2021, after having assessed all ongoing human rights violations in East Turkistan based on documents and witnesses, the Uyghur Tribunal in London came to the conclusion that the crimes committed in the region are genocidal and constitute crimes against humanity, and that the Chinese government under Xi Jinping was accountable for them.
• The US, Canadian, British, Belgian, Dutch, Czech, Lithuanian, Irish, and French parliaments have all recognised that the Chinese government is committing genocide in East Turkistan. The European Parliament has recognised that the Chinese government’s actions in East Turkistan constitute crimes against humanity and a high risk of genocide, while the German Parliament’s Human Rights Commission issued a statement describing that Chinese actions in East Turkistan fulfil all five criteria of the Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention (CPPCG).
• The policies implemented by China in East Turkistan and its current practices constitute crimes of genocidal nature that violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the Rome Statute, the UN Charter, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the UN Convention Against Torture (CAT), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and its Annexes on the Abolition of Slavery, requiring that legal and practical steps be taken to end these violations and restore the rights of the people of East Turkestan.
• Institutions and individuals living outside East Turkistan and acting as representatives of the people of East Turkistan call on the international community, organisations and the business community to take concrete action for the protection of fundamental human rights, for the end to the genocide and the creation of a free society in East Turkistan.

Considering all of the issues raised, we, as the International Uyghur Forum, call upon all of our participants and relevant parties to take immediate action on the following:

1. The steps recommended in the report on human rights violations in East Turkistan issued by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights should be taken urgently.
2. The UN Human Rights Council, the General Assembly, and other UN bodies should acknowledge the ongoing genocide in East Turkistan and take the necessary action against China, which has been committing genocide in violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the UN Charter.
3. At the UN, a commission of inquiry or a special rapporteur should be established to investigate the genocide in East Turkistan.
4. Institutions and organizations operating outside of East Turkistan should be supported and on behalf of its people recognized as official representatives.
5. All countries, in their bilateral relations with China, should take the necessary effective steps to stop the Uyghur genocide by wielding all political and diplomatic means in accordance with the principles outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
6. Following the European Parliament’s June resolution recognising crimes against humanity and a serious risk of genocide, the European Commission should urgently introduce new legislation with the aim to end these atrocities and strengthen its proposals on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence and forced labour import ban. 
7. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and all its member states should recognise the genocide in East Turkistan, take action to stop it, and allow the representatives of East Turkistan to join the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in observer status.
8. To stop the genocide in East Turkistan, UN member states should engage with relevant UN agencies as well as their own countries to take the necessary legal and political steps against China in accordance with the Declaration of Human Rights, to which it is a party, and against all parties involved in the genocide.
9. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) should launch an urgent investigation in the genocide in East Turkistan, prosecute individuals, corporation, institutions, organisations and state officials who are directly or indirectly linked to China and the crime of genocide, and, as a result, issue clear and strong decisions with sanctioning power.
10. Sanctions should be imposed on Chinese companies that are directly or indirectly involved in forced labour of Uyghurs and others; international investment funds for these companies should be halted; imports of products produced through forced labour from China should be prohibited, and international companies that benefit from slave labour and forced labour methods should be held accountable.
11. International companies that supply technologies used by China to commit genocide in East Turkistan should stop doing so, and international sanctions should be imposed on those who do not.
12. Human rights organisations, the European Court of Human Rights and other nongovernmental organisations should take a united and clear stance to end the human rights violations taking place in East Turkistan, take effective steps, and carry out their work on East Turkistan in consultation and co-operation with the organisations that represent East Turkistan.
13. International and national news agencies and journalists, especially Muslim news outlets, should put genocide in East Turkistan on their agenda, and by frequent news reporting on this issue they should provide reliable information and also should contribute to raising awareness and provoking reaction on this matter at an international level. 

Hidayet Oghuzkhan

President of the International Union of The East Turkistan Organizations

Mesud Gulbahar

Hasene - International

Dulkun Isa

World Uyghur Congress