Asian Studies Center, George Washington University
Piero Tozzi, CECC
November 20, 2025
Thank you for inviting me to speak at the launch of the Uyghur Post and the role of Uyghur Language media. It is good to be among so many friends.
Last week I was also given an opportunity to address virtually a forum in India on the People’s Republic of China (PRC) proposed draft ethnic law. The implications for Uyghurs living within the present borders of the PRC was very much a topic of focus, and Rushan Abbas also addressed the forum.
As exemplified by that law, the idea of “unity” proposed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) necessitates cultural erasure of those deemed to be “Other”—in particularly Uyghurs, Tibetans, Mongols and other Central Asian peoples.
Indeed, we already have witnessed the effects of cultural erasure—the separation of children from parents and placement into colonial boarding schools, “becoming family” programs where Han Chinese are placed in Uyghur homes and sometimes beds, forced intermarriage, and the restriction on teaching the Uyghur language while Mandarin is imposed.
When you couple such policies with forced abortion and forced sterilization—not to mention forced organ harvesting—collectively, this amounts to an attempt to erase a people and, I would say, constitutes the crime of genocide under the Genocide Convention.
It also underscores why what you are doing, via the Uyghur Post and Uyghur language media, is so important: you are preserving memory, and the soul of a people.
There is today a particular need for such media, because we see Beijing seeking to standardize Mandarin throughout China—and not just in the Uyghur Autonomous Region or Tibet, but also to displace what often are called Chinese “dialects,” but in reality can be classified as distinct languages such as Cantonese, Shanghainese, or Hoklo.
In so doing, the CCP has created a vacuum which can and should be filled. There is a real need, and also an opportunity, for Uyghur language media, as there is for broadcasting in other non-Mandarin languages.
Some of your reporters and media talent have a pedigree which might include service with Voice of America or Radio Free Asia. Indeed, we at the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) have recently hired a very talented reporter from Radio Free Asia to run our communications. I am thus very happy to see the launch of this new product, because another void on our side is being filled.
As you embark on your mission of service and dissemination of knowledge, it is of course absolutely essential that you give testimony to the truth, to counter CCP lies and propaganda—a commitment to truthful reporting is absolutely essential.
CCP propagandists will be looking to discredit you for any errors in fact. Do not give them that opportunity.
It is this unwavering dedication to truth telling and the highest standards of journalism that you will best serve the Uyghur-speaking community, not only within the political borders of China but in the diaspora as well.
We at the CECC, who rely on good reporting for our own work, need to rely on the veracity of your reporting.
It is this commitment to Truth which ultimately stands in contrast to the lies and propaganda of the CCP. I thus want to encourage you, and to thank you. Your work is profoundly important. May God Allah bless you and your work, and protect you and your reporters and staff.
Thank you.
