Turkey hosts Uighur intangible cultural heritage event

A programme to preserve and promote the intangible cultural heritage of Uighurs in Kazakhstan was launched at an event in the Turkish capital of Ankara on Tuesday by Turkey's Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities agency (YTB).

The event was hosted in cooperation with Haci Bektas Veli Nevsehir University, Kazakh State Women Pedagogical University and Suleymanov Oriental Institute, under UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage advisory.

The initiative has aimed to protect Uighur heritage, including oral narration, rituals, performance arts, traditional handicrafts and more.

Uighurs migrated mainly to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Turkey in the 19th century due to economic, social and political reasons, according to academician Adem Oger, who spoke at the event.

Later in the 20th century, they moved to Europe, the US and the Arabian Peninsula.

China stepped up its restrictions on the minority group over the past two years, which included bans that prevented people from practising their religion.

Up to one million Uighurs in China's Xinjiang autonomous region have been incarcerated in an expanding network of "political re-education" camps.

The region is home to around 10 million Uighurs, which make up around 45 percent of Xinjiang's population.

Human Rights Watch has blamed the Chinese government for a “systematic campaign of human rights violations” against Uighur Muslims in the region.