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April 14, 2025 06:50-07:00 - CSPAN
09:53
The Uyghur Genocide in East Turkestan"
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Nearly 3,500 students across 42 states and D.C. participated in this year's C-SPAN Student Camp Documentary Competition.
This year, we asked students to create short videos with messages to the president exploring issues important to them or their communities.
All this month, we're featuring our top 21 winning entries.
One of this year's second-place high school West winners is a homeschooled 12th grader from Austin, Texas, where C-SPAN is available through Spectrum.
Their winning documentary is titled A People Erase: The Uyghur Genocide in East Turkestan.
This is East Turkestan, or as the People's Republic of China refers to it, Xinjiang.
It borders seven countries, including Russia, making it crucial to the PRC's economic and geopolitical objectives in Eurasia.
East Turkestan, however, also happens to be the native homeland of the Uyghur Muslims.
Uyghur are a historic people who have always been living in Central Asia and in today's East Turkestan, what we call the Chinese government changed the name into Xinjiang, which means new territory.
And we are a very unique indigenous people.
We are completely different from the majority of Chinese population.
Since East Turkestan's incorporation into the PRC, the Chinese Communist Party has targeted the Uyghurs for being a threat to conformity and geopolitical expansion.
Recently, the PRC has intensified efforts to assimilate Uyghurs through mass internment, forced sterilizations and abortions, forced labor, and other efforts to erase the Uyghur religion.
The Uyghurs, many of whom practice the Muslim faith, are being erased.
Genocide is occurring, this time at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.
We are privileged to have with us many members of the Uyghur community, witnesses to the attempted elimination of a people, a culture, civilization.
Such witnesses, like Roshana Boss, are the ones who can truly illustrate the horrors the CCP is enacting upon the Uyghur people.
My husband's entire family went missing by the summer of 2017.
24 people.
My parents-in-laws, three of my sister-in-laws, their husband's brother-in-law and his wife, 14 of my husband's nieces and nephews.
Then I practiced my freedom of speech as an American citizen in America.
I spoke out against this mass illegal detention and the China's genocidal policies against Uyghurs in one of the think tanks here in Washington at Hatsen Institute.
That was September 2018, more than six years ago.
So six days after that, the Chinese government went after my sister, detained her from her home in Uruqi, And put her in jail.
For more than six years now, since September 2018, my sister is in jail, paying the price for my freedom of speech in America as an American citizen.
Rushan's story reflects the individual suffering inflicted by the Uyghur genocide.
But despite this evidence of human rights abuse, Uyghur internment persists partly due to economic incentives.
The Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, a Chinese paramilitary and commercial entity, exploits Uyghur forced labor, which companies like Nike and Adidas benefit from.
The XPCC manages prisons and policing in Xinjiang while also trading public stock.
This entity was recently sanctioned under the Global Magnitsky Act, which authorizes the U.S. to penalize foreign officials involved in human rights violations.
However, other companies that interact with the XPCC have not yet been sanctioned.
This entity, XPCC, which is under commercial sanctions from multiple governments and including the U.S., not only are they have no access to the U.S. financial system, right?
It is illegal to help them to have any commercial reactions to send any money to or from, but there should be secondary sanctions that no other, any foreign company that does the same should also be banned, have Magnitsky sanctions applied.
Clearly, something is wrong in Xinjiang, and it's particularly hard to address because so many entities derive an economic benefit from the PRC's actions.
But amid this international pressure, what does China have to say on the issue?
For Xinjiang, Tibet, and Taiwan, they are inalienable part of China's territory.
China is firmly opposed to U.S. interference in China's internal affairs.
China has made steady progress in human rights, and the fact is that there are many problems within the United States regarding human rights.
To some degree, this raises an interesting question.
Why is the Uyghur genocide the most pressing human rights violation in the modern world?
Well, as anyone familiar with the issue will tell you, China's actions within the Xinjiang camps are uniquely evil.
And within that camps, what's happening was complete destroyment of the Uyghurs, like a dehumanizing Uyghur wars, humiliating, brainwashing, raping, sterilizing women, men, and afterwards also making Uyghurs to slaves in the Chinese factories, exporting many Chinese products that are produced by the Uyghur slavery.
All this indicates that the Chinese government is undertaking against Uyghurs genocide.
The People's Republic of China must not be allowed to perpetrate such human rights abuses without facing international accountability.
The incoming administration should continue Magnitsky's sanctions against the XPCC and identify and further sanction other organizations associated with and benefiting from Uyghur forced labor.
Additionally, the administration should consider broader legislative action against the People's Republic of China, which is the driving force behind the atrocities in Xinjiang.
The president also ought to take a staunch public stance against the genocide, making it clear to the PRC that cooperative relations between China and the United States cannot continue while the CCP exterminates the Uyghur religion.
Be sure to watch all of the winning entries on our website at studentcam.org.
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Blue Origin is set to make history with its NS-31 spaceflight featuring an all-female crew.
You can watch the launch live on C-SPAN 2 this morning at 9.15 Eastern.
The crew includes Gail King, co-host of CBS Mornings, along with singer Katy Perry and others.
Watch the Blue Origin launch live this morning at 9.15 Eastern on C-SPAN 2.
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This week, watch a primetime encore presentation of our 10-part series, First 100 Days.
We explore the early months of U.S. presidencies, from George Washington in 1789 to Donald Trump in 2017.
We'll learn about the decisions made and how they shaped the White House, the nation, and history.
Tonight, we'll look at the first 100 days of George Washington's presidency.
He established the very office of president, created the first cabinet, helped establish the nation's courts, and the first system of tariffs and taxes.
As the inauguration approached, visitors poured into the city, filling taverns, boarding houses, and private homes.
Every one of them was desperate for a glimpse of Washington.
I have seen him, a young Boston woman breathlessly wrote home.
I never saw a human being that looked so great and noble as he does.
I could fall down on my knees before him and bless him.
Watch First 100 Days, weeknights, all this week at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN2 or online at c-span.org.
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