Uyghur rights advocate exposes China's financial repression tactics at HRF event

Washington DC [US], April 19 (ANI): Rushan Abbas, Executive Committee Chair of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) and Executive Director of Campaign for Uyghurs, in an address at the Human Rights Foundation (HRF) highlighted the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) systematic use of financial repression to control and erase the Uyghur population, as reported by the World Uyghur Congress (WUC).
According to WUC report, in her speech, Abbas detailed how economic tools are weaponized as part of the CCP's broader campaign of persecution, calling the tactics "a devastating financial dimension to the genocide Uyghurs are facing."
She emphasized that Uyghurs are frequently stripped of property and homes without compensation, subjected to arbitrary freezes on bank accounts, and denied economic opportunities. "This is not just discrimination--it is financial warfare," she stated.
Particularly targeted are Uyghur academics, business leaders, and farmers. Abbas cited a staggering 50-fold increase in land transfers between 2001 and 2021, which displaced countless Uyghur farmers and handed control to the state.
Many homeowners were forced to re-register properties or risk confiscation--an impossible task for those detained in camps. Their homes have since been taken over by Han Chinese settlers, as cited by WUC.
These policies funnel Uyghurs into the regime's so-called "Poverty Alleviation Program," which Abbas and human rights expert Adrian Zenz have described as a front for forced labor. Under surveillance, Uyghurs are relocated to exploitative factory jobs with no option to refuse, as cited by WUC.
"Every bank transaction is monitored, every app tracked," Abbas warned. "There is no economic autonomy, only control." She described the region of East Turkistan as a police state, where financial repression serves as a critical tool in silencing dissent and erasing Uyghur identity.
Abbas concluded, "This is modern-day slavery in the guise of development."
China systematically represses Uyghurs through mass surveillance, forced labor, cultural erasure, and financial control. Millions are detained in camps, their properties seized, and economic freedoms stripped. Under constant monitoring, Uyghurs face religious persecution and displacement, while CCP policies aim to erase their identity and assimilate them into Han Chinese society. (ANI)