Uyghurs
Rian Thum explored the concepts of identity among the ancestors of the modern Uyghurs in Altishahr (the native Uyghur name for eastern Turkestan or southern Xinjiang) before the adoption of the name "Uyghur" in the 1930s, referring to them by the name "Altishahri" in his article "Modular History: Identity Maintenance before Uyghur Nationalism". Thum indicated that Altishahri Turkis did have a sense that they were a distinctive group separate from the Turkic Andijanis to their west, the nomadic Turkic Kirghiz, the nomadic Mongol Qalmaq, and the Han Chinese Khitay before they became known as Uyghurs. There was no single name used by them to refer to themselves, the various native names Altishahris used to refer to themselves were Altishahrlik (Altishahr person), yerlik (local), Turki, and Musulmān (Muslim), the term Musulmān in this situation did not signify religious connotations, because the Altishahris would exclude other Muslim peoples like the Kirghiz when referring to themselves as Musulmān. Dr. Laura J Newby has also noted that the sedentary Altishahri Turkic people felt themselves as a separate group from other Turkic Muslims since at least the 19th century.
World Uyghur Congress
The World Uyghur Congress is an umbrella term for an organisation of once small, weak and fractious Uyghur nationalist groups, including the World Uyghur Youth Congress, formed in November 1996 and the East Turkestan National Congress. On 18 April 2004, these groups united, with Erkin Alptekin serving as the first president and Dolkun Isa is General Secretary since 2004 of the unified group; he served until 2006, when Rebiya Kadeer was elected as at the second General Assembly meeting held on 24–27 November 2006. The Congress has convened six assemblies since its inception—in 2004, 2006, 2009, 2012, 2016 and 2017. As part of the East Turkestan independence movement, it is a member of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization. The organisation itself is based primarily in Munich, where a large Uyghur diaspora lives. There are known links between the WUC and the East Turkestan Islamic Movement.