First of all, I would like to thank Mr. Jason Kenny for organizing this hearing today.
Also, I would like to express my special gratitude for all those interested parties who are here, who care for the human rights of the Uyghur people, and it is my really great pleasure to come here today to explain to you the human rights violations the Uyghur people are facing in China.
We are the Uyghur people. We are not Chinese. The Chinese government occupied our homeland in 1949, and after that the Chinese government changed our homeland's name from East Turkestan into Xinjiang. We are an autonomous region. Xinjiang means new territory in Chinese.
Our territory is nearly two million square kilometres in size. The fate of the Uyghur people is very similar to the fate of the Tibetans. We are both under Chinese rule, but because the Chinese have covered up our situation, we haven't been able to raise the case of the Uyghur people's human rights violations in the world as successfully as our Tibetan brothers.
Because of interpretation and language issues, now I'm going to turn to my interpreter, who is going to read my full statement for you. Before my interpreter reads the statement, I would like to express my greatest appreciation to the people and the Government of Canada for raising the case of the Uyghur people and even helping gain my release from a dark Chinese prison.
So thank you.