Uyghur News Recap: February 24 – March 2, 2022 
A summary of Uyghur-related news around the world 
The Chinese government praises a former Chinese People’s Liberation Army soldier for helping Uyghur, Kazakh and Kyrgyz students, while the government has jailed some Uyghurs who had helped students and orphans. A Uyghur cardiac surgeon who carried the Olympic torch during the 2008 Bejing Games was confirmed by RFA to be serving an 18-year jail sentence. Uyghur survivors of internment camps share their experiences with VOA. Beijing has described the facilities as vocational training centers. Turkey rejected applications for citizenship of some Uyghur refugees who have spoken out about their family members held in detention in China, citing “obstacle to national security,” which Uyghurs in Turkey said is unfair. RFA reports a Uyghur elementary school in Istanbul was ordered to close after China allegedly filed a complaint over concerns that children were getting anti-China education. Some Turkish politicians want the school to reopen. Germany urged the U.N. human rights office to release a report on China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims and call on Beijing to allow the U.N. high commissioner for human rights “unfettered access” to Xinjiang. RFA reported that a Uyghur retiree whose daughter lives in the U.S. was rearrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison last year after she had first been detained in a “re-education camp” for two years. RFA reported the Chinese government in Xinjiang is shutting down more than 150 mostly Uyghur-owned cultural research and language organizations. On March 2, more than 100 Uyghurs protested in front of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in Washington, demanding the U.S. government grant them asylum. U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet’s office  of the Uyghurs and other Turkic ethnic groups in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China at the 49th session of the Human Rights Council on March 7 amid pressure from rights groups. “Our families are not able to reunite because we are not granted asylum,” said Ilzat Abdusemet, a Uyghur asylum-seeker at a Washington rally, who wants to bring his family abroad to the United States. Ilzat told VOA, “We are simply asking the U.S. government to help us expedite our cases and schedule our interviews for asylum.”