This August, activists at Amnesty International UK are spearheading a global campaign to raise awareness of the ongoing human rights abuses experienced by Uyghurs whilst also celebrating the unique cultural identity of this distinct ethnic minority group.
Background information
For almost a decade, the Chinese government has enforced a massive crackdown on the Uyghurs in North-West China, the ‘Uyghur Region’, detaining over a million people in so-called ‘re-education’ camps and subjecting them to forced labour. Former detainees have provided harrowing testimonies of physical and psychological torture, with many women experiencing forced sterilisation. Amnesty International’s 2021 report set out the factual basis for concluding that Chinese authorities had committed at least the crimes against humanity of imprisonment, torture and persecution; the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights reached similar conclusions in its own 2022 report.
Against a background of continuing repression, Amnesty International’s Uyghur Solidarity Month campaign is therefore even more important.
Alarm was first raised in 2017 over the Chinese government’s systematic abuses against Uyghurs in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and the picture has not improved: during a 2023 visit to Urumqi, President Xi Jinping called for further ‘Sinicisation’ of Islam in the region, and on a high-profile return in 2025 to mark the 70th anniversary of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region he again reiterated that enforced ‘stability’ remains a policy priority. Nearly a decade later, China’s new ‘Ethnic Unity Law’, which came into force on 1 July, 2026, paints a worrying picture for minority communities such as Uyghurs.
Uyghur Solidarity Month is a new, volunteer-led form of Amnesty campaign open to activists across the UK and beyond. Across August it runs along four connected strands: a daily ‘Language resilience’ feature sharing Uyghur words and reflections donated by Uyghur creatives and cultural leaders; ‘Uyghur artistic production’, platforming Uyghur artists and cultural workers alongside their own reflections; ‘Creative solidarity’, through which thirty local Amnesty groups have already committed to their own creative acts of protest; and a ‘Daily action’, offering one simple, concrete political action a day, from sharing the campaign to writing to an MP.
Interested people can also sign up to a daily campaign newsletter bringing together words to learn, cultural spotlights, examples of creative work and activist actions. The campaign encourages people to make simple everyday pledges such as learning one Uyghur word every day in August, committing to learning about Uyghur culture and history, and taking small political actions such as sending letters or postcards.
‘Creative solidarity’ across UK
For each day in August, Amnesty is curating a creative output that has already been designed by someone from within the Amnesty networks, either internationally (including Amnesty France and Amnesty Mexico) or locally in the UK. These include a mosaic inspired by learning about Uyghur music, and origami birds carrying messages of solidarity inspired by the Uyghur symbol for freedom which is a pigeon.
Each day, Amnesty International UK will unveil another way that Amnesty activists are standing with Uyghur creatives: from a community meal cooked with a Uyghur chef to a book-shaped sculpture honouring Uyghur authors, a knitting stunt and plate-painting.
Uyghur artists
There are thirty contributing Uyghur creatives for the month, spanning a broad diversity within the diaspora: from traditional to experimental creative outputs, from more established to newer voices, from fundamental to queer and progressive, a wide range of creatives will be platformed.
Emily Upson and Clara Candat-Bazile, the campaign organisers at Amnesty International UK, said:
“Uyghur Solidarity Month only works because so many people – Uyghur creatives, local Amnesty groups, members of the public – choose to care about Uyghur rights. We wanted to create a movement that built, encouraged, and celebrated solidarity within the UK from the ground.”
The end of August will mark four years exactly since the United Nation’s Office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights (UN OHCHR) released their report on the Uyghur Region in 2022. This report detailed extensive evidence of human rights abuses against Uyghur people in China, and surmised that these abuses may constitute crimes against humanity.
North East human rights activists and organisations are encouraged to join the Uyghur Solidarity Month campaign and also to organise their own events. To sign up to the campaign complete this webform.
Further information about Uyghurs and human rights.
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