Geneva [Switzerland], December 14 (ANI): The World Uyghur Congress (WUC) commemorated the 39th anniversary of the 1985 Uyghur Student Movement, a pivotal moment in the history of Uyghur resistance against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). On December 12, thousands of Uyghur students took to the streets of Urumchi to protest the CCP's discriminatory policies, including racial discrimination, oppressive family planning measures, and atmospheric nuclear testing in the Lop Nur basin of East Turkistan. Also Read | TikTok Ban: US Lawmakers Ask Google and Apple To Remove ByteDance-Owned App From Their App Stores.
The movement, spearheaded by the Tengritagh Generation, a student organization at Xinjiang University, marked the beginning of a significant uprising in the region. The students called for democratic elections in East Turkistan, an end to the influx of Chinese settlers, the cessation of harsh birth control policies, and the preservation of Uyghur cultural education. Their protests, which lasted for a week, gained significant traction, and Chinese authorities were forced to meet with student representatives to discuss their demands.
Despite the CCP's subsequent crackdown on movement leaders, including the formation of an "Inspection and Disposal Committee" to punish participants, the protests ignited a wave of similar movements across universities in the region, according to WUC statement. Also Read | Meta Outage Hit Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads Globally; Know .
