dogu-turkistan-sempozyumu

East Turkistan: The Road to Freedom and the Right to Self-Determination / Sirajeddin Azizi SemseddinThe international community andthe Muslim world must rise to the responsibilityCountries such as the United States, Russia, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and ourbrothers in the countries of Central Asia are fully aware of the tragedies that areoccurring in the lives of the people of Turkistan and the struggle they are carryingout to survive and to attain their rights, as well as the punishments for those peoplewho committed crimes; these crimes as well as those of the Chinese occupier havebeen inflicted against these people, be they in Turkistan or outside of Turkistan,and now they are being exposed to the world, in particular after the latest eventsin Urumqi. The stances of state leaders like Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the PrimeMinister of Turkey and Mr. Bulent Arinc, the Deputy Prime Minister are the bestwitnesses to this fact; they must be followed by others. The Turkish state shouldraise the issue of East Turkistan to the United Nations and the Security Council.The responsibility of the people of TurkistanFirst and foremost it is the responsibility of the people of Turkistan, inparticular the younger generation, to keep this matter on the public agenda; inorder to do this there are a number of things that must be taken care of, including:- Education, in all subjects and at all levels; without science and education noperson in the world can be free. The Chinese occupation is still trying to keep ourpeople in the darkness of ignorance, keeping them away from the fields of science,particularly religious and modern sciences. There is no hope for us to be free fromthe occupation without the weapons of science and education.- Using the media to define our just case in international forums, and to defineit at local and institutional levels; in this way we will be able to win internationalsupport.- The economy is important as it is a lifeline for freedom; the people of Turkistanhave tremendous wealth in their country, but this has been looted by the Chinesefor the past 6 decades; there are a great deal of resources and a great potentialawaiting to benefit our cause. For example, there are Turkistan endowments inArabic and Muslim countries. There have to date been no instances of these beingimplemented for the sake of Eastern Turkistan.591