East Turkistan Government-in-Exile
The East Turkistan Government-in-Exile is an exile government setup by Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other peoples from East Turkistan and claims to be the sole organ authorized to represent East Turkistan and its people until East Turkistan has been liberated from Chinese rule. The East Turkistan Government in Exile has not been recognized by the People's Republic of China, which has sternly opposed it since its creation in September 2004.
Position on East Turkistan / Xinjiang
The territory of East Turkistan is administered by the People's Republic of China as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, a situation that the East Turkistan Government in Exile considers an illegitimate military occupation. The position of the ETGE is that East Turkistan is a distinct nation with a long history of independence. The ETGE does not consider themselves as "separatists" because they believe that, "you can't separate from something you don't belong to." The position of the People's Republic of China holds that the integration of Xinjiang into the Chinese state in 1949 was a "Peaceful Liberation", and furthermore that East Turkistan / Xinjiang has long been a part of China, that East Turkistan has not been properly independent, but rather that its de facto independence as the First and East Turkistan Republics between 1933 and 1949 was a result of "hostile forces in and outside China, especially separatists, religious extremists and terrorists, who have tried to split China and break it apart by distorting history and facts."Formation
The East Turkistan Government in Exile was formally declared on September 14, 2004 in room HC-6 of the US Capitol in Washington DC by members of the global East Turkistani / Uyghur community. Ahmat Igambardi, who had previously been the Chairman of the first East Turkistan International Congress created in 1992, was elected as president and Anwar Yusuf Turani was elected as Prime Minister.Objectives
The East Turkistan Government in Exile describes itself as an exile government that seeks to end China's occupation and colonization of East Turkistan, currently known as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China, and seeks to establish an independent state in East Turkistan which would take the form of a democratic parliamentary republic with protections for civil liberties for all people groups of the region. The East Turkistan Government in Exile has convened 8 General Assemblies since its creation in 2004, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2019. The organization itself is based primarily in Washington DC, where a large Uyghur diaspora lives, but has members in over a dozen countries. Although China protested the establishment of the East Turkistan Government in Exile and considers a number of "Uighur separatists", who refer to their homeland as East Turkistan, as "terrorists," there are no links between the ETGE and the East Turkestan Islamic Movement.Leadership
Government Leadership
As the Government in Exile is made up of a number of East Turkistan and Uyghur groups internationally, its leaders are based in a number of countries. The present leadership was announced on November 11, 2019 following elections at the ETGE's 8th General Assembly in Washington, DC.| Position | Name | Location |
| President | Ghulam Osman Yaghma | Canada |
| Prime Minister | Salih Hudayar | USA |
| Vice President | Abdulahat Nur | Canada |
| Deputy Prime Ministers | Haji Mahmut Mirqedir Mirzat | Canada France |
| Interior Minister | Nurahmet Kurban | Switzerland |
| Foreign Minister | Adil Abbas | Canada |
| Finance Minister | Dr. Anwar Yasin | Japan |
| Minister of Education & Culture | Professor Memet Litip | Japan |
| Minister of Information & Communications | Hashimjan Turak | Canada |
| Minister of Religion & Interfaith Harmony | Abdullah Khodja | France |
Parliamentary Leadership
The Parliament is the legislative branch of the Government in Exile. As the Government in Exile's Parliament is made up of a number of members internationally, its leaders are based in a number of countries. The present leadership was announced on November 11, 2019 following elections at the ETGE's 8th General Assembly in Washington, DC. The Parliament is also made up of six committees that help oversee the government's different ministries.| Position | Name | Location |
| Speaker of the Parliament | Osmanjan Tursun | Germany |
| Deputy Speaker of the Parliament | Yarmemet Barat | USA |
| Parliamentary Secretary | Tursun Shamseddin | Norway |
President
, a Uyghur writer, poet, and veteran East Turkistan Independence leader, was elected as the President of the East Turkistan Government in Exile during the ETGE's 8th General Assembly in Washington, DC in November 2019 He authored numerous books, novels, articles, and poems in a bid to awaken the East Turkistani people in their struggle for restoring East Turkistan's independence. Lost Treasure, He Is Still in Battle, Sigh, and Reflection are among the most read fiction novels written by him. He wrote numerous political orientated books include Exploring on the Path of East Turkistan Liberation, Mirror, and Tears of East Turkistan among others. He was barred from getting a higher education because at the age of 16 he had participated in creating an organization to liberate East Turkistan from Chinese occupation. After enduring persecution from the Chinese government, Yaghma fled East Turkistan in 1996 and later sought asylum in Canada in 2002.Prime Minister
is a young East Turkistan independence leader, political activist, business consultant, and graduate student. He founded the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement, a political party, in June 2017 and launched a global movement to openly advocate for the restoration of East Turkistan's independence. Hudayar fled East Turkistan with his family in 20000 and grew up in Oklahoma.Previous Prime Ministers of the East Turkistan Government-in-Exile were Abdulahat Nur, Ismail Cengiz, and Anwar Yusuf Turani.
Activities
The ETGE engages in a wide range of awareness raising and advocacy campaigns about the human rights situation for Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic peoples in East Turkistan. It explicitly advocates for the restoration of East Turkistan's independence concentrating on the United States Congress in Washington, the Canadian Government, EU member states, NATO, Japan, and India. In March 2020, members of the East Turkistan Government in Exile and the East Turkistani community, led by newly elected Prime Minister Salih Hudayar, met with Representative Ted Yoho and asked him to deliver a speech on East Turkistan at the US House of Representatives. Congressman Ted Yoho described East Turkistan as an "occupied country" and condemned China for its genocide of Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic peoples.Although the East Turkistan Government in Exile claims to be politically neutral, they have close links with the Republican Party, and the Prime Minister makes semi-regular appearances on conservative media, including a guest appearance on Steve Bannon's War Room, and its overall nationalistic rhetoric pushing for the independence of East Turkistan. In November 2019, retired US Air Force Brigadier General Robert Spalding, the former Director of Strategic Planning, at the US National Security Council and Joseph Bosco, the former China Director at the US Department of Defense along with other American analysts had attended and gave speeches at the ETGE's 8th General Assembly in Washington, DC.
In June 2020, the East Turkistan Government in Exile spearheaded an effort by pro-independence Uyghur, Manchu, and Tibetan groups to oppose "Chinese imperialism in all forms" and sent a joint letter to the US State Department, the Council of the European Union, and the Foreign Ministries of the India, Japan, and the UK rejecting "Chinese occupation," and calling on the "international community to help bring about a democratic resolution that gives complete national independence for East Turkistan, Manchura, South Mongolia, and Tibet."
The East Turkistan Government in Exile praised the passage of the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, a law that requires various US government agencies to report on human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and thanked United States President Donald Trump and the United States Congress. The ETGE stated that "we hope this will the first step towards restoring freedom and independence to East Turkistan.”
On July 14, 2020, the East Turkistan Government in Exile signed onto a joint letter by 64 Canadian MPs and 20 organizations urging Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, his deputy Chrystia Freeland and Global Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne to sanction Chinese and Hong Kong officials “directly responsible for the human rights atrocities happening in Tibet, occupied East Turkestan, and Hong Kong.”