Labour MPs John McDonnell (former Shadow Chancellor) and Kate Osamor (former Shadow Secretary of State for International Development) recorded messages of solidarity for our online event on 5 July 2020 commemorating the Urumqi massacre. You can watch them and read the transcripts below.
The meeting also heard from a range of other speakers, including Labour’s current Shadow Minister for Asia & the Pacific, Stephen Kinnock (the full recording will be available soon). John, Kate and Stephen join the growing ranks of MPs, trade union branches and other supporters backing the Uyghur Solidarity Campaign UK.
I am sending solidarity to the Uyghur Solidarity meeting today, on the anniversary of the massacre. It is an opportune time to remind people of the suffering the Uyghur people have gone through, in recent years in particular.
The savage repression by the Chinese state, the internment, the brutality meted out to the Uyghur people, the long sentences for those illegally imprisoned, and the whole attempt to wipe out the culture of the Uyghurs – it is appalling.
We have to stand up in solidarity, in condemning the brutality of the Chinese state; and we have to build now among workers’ movements across the globe that campaign of solidarity – exposing what’s going on, supporting wherever we the vidtims and the families of victims of this repression, and then doing everything we can to urge our governments to act. And that does mean making sure the Chinese government is aware that the mass of the population in the UK will be outraged, when they learn about the repression, outraged about what’s happening.
This is something we have to condemn and continue to campaign against. This is a message of solidarity from me, but also I give this commitment, I will do all I can in the campaign to expose the repression and oppose the repression and to build this movement to secure the long-term future of the Uyghur people and their culture. Solidarity.
John McDonnell MP
Hello comrades. I’m sending this message to everyone meeting online today to protest the repression of the Uyghurs. The Chinese state is engaged in a systematic attack against its own people. The international community needs to step up, to demand the closure of all concentration camps and the immediate release of all prisoners. I stand in solidarity with the Uyghur people.
Kate Osamor MP
Uyghur Solidarity UK 