China took over the Xinjiang region (formerly known as East Turkestan) in 1949 (BBC, 2014). After the takeover, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began to promote the enrollment of students in public schools, while seemingly also embracing the use of regional languages other than Mandarin. Due to this initial embrace

Written by Snigdha Jagarlapudi and Annie McDonnell While studying at Al-Azhar Islamic University in Egypt, Muyesser Muhemmed met her future husband, Sedirjan. They married in 2006 and moved to Kazakhstan in 2007. In 2016, Muyesser returned to her home city in Xinjiang, Atush of the prefecture Kizilsu. Initially, her trip

I was sitting at the school assembly in our gym among a crowd of students and teachers who were wearing a typical smiley face. Tears were running down on my face thinking the tragic events that happened to my own family and feeling the fear of extinction of my nation-Uyghurs