Speech by Dr. Jianli YANG at Uyghur Freedom Rally
Freedom Plaza, 1455 Pennsylvania Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20004
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Today, we are gathering in brotherhood. Our Uyghur brothers and sisters are suffering severely under the yoke of the Fascism with Chinese characteristics. Seventy years ago, after the Holocaust of the Jewish people under Hitler, we vowed “never again.” But among post-war atrocities that belie that pledge, we today must add the “reeducation” concentration camps where more than 1.5 million Uyghurs are detained.
Dear brothers and sisters, the 1.5million are not numbers. They are human beings. They are not only human beings, they are parents, they are sons and daughters, they are husbands and wives, they are brothers and sisters. They are not 3146 and 4257, they are Aygul and Alim, a beautiful young Uyghur woman and a handsome young Uyghur man.
Today our conscience and morality are being challenged and judged, yes challenged and judged by our ability to see the suffering of others and do everything possible in our capacity to help end it.
In DC, there are a few places we must know. The Holocaust Museum is one of them. It speaks to the evil darkness into which we are capable of descending. But there are other places that, on the opposite, speak to the ideals of mankind: the Jefferson Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, and, of course, Capitol Hill. Today, we look up once again to the highest palace of democracy, US Congress, to demand its swift passage of the pending bipartisan legislations, the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act and the Uighur Intervention and Global Humanitarian Unified Response (UIGHUR) Act.
We must not forget DC is the Capital of the most powerful democracy on earth. I would like you to join me in urging the Trump administration to put on the sanction list under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act Chen Quanguo, the current Communist Party Secretary of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, also known as East Turkestan, for his gross violations of human rights.
Upon thinking of the Holocaust in today’s context, I want to recommit myself, and would like to invite all of you to do so, that we will never be the next people to look away in the face of atrocity.