History of the Uyghur people
The history of the Uyghur people, as with the ethnic origin of the people, is an issue of contention between Uyghur nationalists and the Chinese authority. Uyghur historians viewed the Uyghurs as the original inhabitants of Xinjiang with a long history. Uyghur politician and historian Muhemmed Imin Bughra wrote in his book "A history of East Turkestan", stressing the Turkic aspects of his people, that the Turks have a 9000-year history, while historian Turgun Almas incorporated discoveries of Tarim mummies to conclude that Uyghurs have over 6400 years of history, and the World Uyghur Congress claimed a 4,000-year history. Chinese historians however generally traced the origin of the Uyghurs to the Tiele, some to the Dingling as well as other people mentioned in ancient Chinese texts such as the Guifang. Official Chinese view asserts the Uyghurs to be of Tiele origin, and only became the main social and political force in Xinjiang during the ninth century when they migrated to Xinjiang from Mongolia after the collapse of the Uyghur Khaganate, replacing the Han Chinese that they claimed were there since the Han Dynasty. Many modern Western scholars however do not consider the modern Uyghurs to be of direct linear descent from the old Uyghur Khaganate of Mongolia, rather they are descendants of a number of people, of which the ancient Uyghurs are but one.
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.