In the past, Uighurs have had their own political leaders working within the Chinese Communist Party. Some of those people did try, in some ways, to advocate for Uighur rights and greater autonomy. Uighurs themselves now live in what they call the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, so according to the constitution, they are granted some autonomy and some rights. In effect, however, I would say that since the 1990s to the present, that autonomy has not actually been present on the ground.
There have been also Chinese Communist leaders in the more recent past, such as Zhang Chunxian, the party secretary prior to the current party secretary. He was removed because he was seen as too lenient, but he wasn't actually that lenient. He participated in or advocated for “hard strike” campaigns. He's the one who began the “people's war on terror”. However, he permitted some Uighurs to obtain passports and travel abroad, to travel to Turkey.
I think because of that—this is my sense, at least—he was seen as too lenient and too open-minded towards Uighurs. He said that the reason he allowed them to get passports was that we shouldn't punish all Uighurs for the fault of a few. We should allow the good Uighurs to travel if they want to. They should be able to pursue careers and things like that.
The Chinese state has now taken a hard line against that sort of leniency. They have now moved from hard strike and security positioning to “transformation” positioning. They're trying to introduce what they call “permanent stability”, a kind of final solution to what they call the Uighur problem.