Jewher Ilham is an author and advocate for the Uyghur community and for her imprisoned father, Uyghur economist Ilham Tohti.
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED TO YOUTUBE MARCH 2023: https://youtu.be/kXzcVAXiZeE
FILMED MAY 2022.
(00:00:00) Introducing Jewher
(00:00:42) Jewher mission at Oslo Freedom Forum
(00:01:51) Authoritarianism in China
(00:05:45) Why there hasn't been support for the Uyghurs
(00:09:44) How companies operate in the Uyghur region
(00:09:53) Discussion on forced labor conditions, likening it to modern-day slavery, and the challenges in uncovering and addressing forced labor practices.
(00:14:22) Challenges with advocating for the Uyghurs
(00:17:09) The surveillance state in China
(00:20:25) Financial censorship in China
(00:26:05) Preserving the Uyghur culture
(00:27:58) Circumventing oppression in China
(00:32:34) Could Bitcoin help the Uyghurs?
(00:43:04) Jewher's family in China
(00:50:26) Taking action against companies linked to forced labor
[00:00:00]
Unknown:
Johar Ilam is an author and advocate for the Uber community and for imprisoned father, Uber economist Ilham Totti. Johar has testified before US Congress, published op eds in the New York Times and The Guardian, and received numerous international awards on behalf of her father, including the European Saccaro prize. In 2015 and then later in 2022, Jo Har released 2 books about their struggle and the fight for freedom. Jo Har currently works at the Workers Rights Consortium as forced labor project coordinator and serves as spokesperson for the coalition to end Uber forced labor. She is also assisting on the production of a new documentary film about Uggers and their fight called Static and Noise. Johar, thank you for joining me.
Your story is extremely powerful. It's very compelling story. So I think the best place for us to start here is is, you know, what brings you to Oslo? What is what is your mission here?
[00:00:58] Unknown:
So this is actually my first time, invited to speak to be speaking at the Oslo Freedom Forum. And today, I spoke about, how the Chinese government has been implementing repressive policies in the Uyghur region, and targeting the Uyghur people, you know, abusing, abusing the people, and violating our rights, and subjecting Uyghur's to, you know, widespread detention, and forced labor, and all kinds of other types of egregious human rights abuses.
[00:01:28] Unknown:
You were were you born in China?
[00:01:31] Unknown:
Yes. I was born and raised in Beijing, actually. I was not raised in my homeland, unfortunately, but I got to, I got to, learn and, learn about my own culture and my language after coming to the US because I was not free to do so when I was living in Beijing.
[00:01:51] Unknown:
So as an American, we talk about freedom a lot, but we don't experience our freedom being taken away on a firsthand basis. How does that shape you as an individual, and how you move forward with your life?
[00:02:09] Unknown:
So, in China, there there's no any forms of freedom of expression exist, no freedom of speech, no freedom of thought, and you will be surprised when I'm you will be like, how does freedom of thought even get how can anyone know what you're thinking? Right? I'm gonna explain to you about that in a little bit. And, freedom to speak, freedom to write, not only within the Weihua region, but also outside of the Weihua region. There's no any forms of freedom of expression in China, and it's mainly targeting the, Turkic ethnic minority groups, like Uyghurs, like the Kazakhs, like the Kyrgyz, but also the Chinese government has also been targeting their own people, the Han Chinese people as well. So anyone who dares to share their free will, their free minds, their free, you know, expression is going to be targeted.
And when I earlier mentioned about freedom to think Right. So now the Chinese government has been, as I mentioned, you know, implementing oppressive policies in the Uyghur region, locking up millions of people. Under in order to justify their actions, the Chinese government says that, says that they are, locking millions of people, because they are tainted by extremist thoughts, extremist thoughts, or, you know, separatist, thoughts. Don't you find this claim very odd? Because how do you know if this person is tainted by any kinds of thought or not. Read their mind. Exactly.
And often and also from this BBC interview that I've watched, it's a it's a docu short documentary. One of these detainees spoke to the journalist said, I was I am here studying because I had, the Chinese, government, our party, have found out that I was tainted by religious extremist thought, and the Chinese government saved me. When I saw that statement, my heart was breaking because he had to make that statement. He had to blame it on himself in order to save him or probably his family members from the Chinese government's you know, hands.
[00:04:30] Unknown:
So it seems that this idea of criminalized thought is is almost used as an excuse to persecute people that justify their actions. Right. To it's it's used as their reason, but it that's not the real reason. Right? Exactly. The real reason is power and control, presumably. Yes. The power and control. Actually, I mentioned that in my talk as
[00:04:54] Unknown:
well. The Uyghur region is full of natural resources, and it's it's it has great advantage for geopolitical value, their geopolitical value, and also because of the ethnic and culture differences between the Uyghurs and Han Chinese, which makes the Uyghurs or any group so threatening to the Chinese regime. Well, according to the Chinese government, for for them in their heads, that's probably how they're thinking, misassuming. And and it's really it's really frustrating because the Chinese government is getting away from these actions, even though they're labeling all Uyghur people as terrorists, as extremists, as separatists, and then putting them in prison, people are not doing much about it.
[00:05:45] Unknown:
Why do you think there's not more support in the West?
[00:05:51] Unknown:
It's all about the money. I mean, that definitely plays a part. It's not probably not completely because of, you know, the money. But definitely, I also mentioned that in my talk as well because of the, you know, China has been investing in hundreds of countries, like, with throughout with the Belt and Road Initiative project, which is China's flagship trade project, with the nearby countries countries that are located in, in in in Central Asia, you know, throughout those circle silk road lines, has been, you know, receiving help from the Chinese government, and the Chinese government have been has been building different kinds of infrastructures and infrastructures in those countries.
And, for example, a perfect example, Pakistan. Pakistan has been known on commenting on human rights abuses happening in all around the world, but they have been very silent on commenting on the Uighur issue. Why? The prime minister themselves had had stated, directly in one of, publicly in one of the interview he had, he said, oh, China has been, giving us lots of help. If we need to talk something we need to go under the table behind the scenes we cannot just publicly, you know, say that you're doing something wrong, like it's not the exact quote. But they don't want a repercussion there. Yes exactly, they don't want to lose the support
[00:07:17] Unknown:
from the Chinese government, and I'm sure that goes with lots of other countries as well. And probably even corporations. So you see US corporations that Not only is China's a massive market. Right? Yes.
[00:07:29] Unknown:
There are hundreds of corporations that are operating in the Uyghur region or outside of the Uyghur region, but still using Uyghur workers because the Chinese government has been transporting Uyghurs outside of the Uyghur region as part of the labor transport programs, working for multinational corporations under circum under conditions that strongly indicate forced labor.
[00:07:51] Unknown:
But they so the corporations in this situation are are pretending that it's not forced labor. Well, some are pretend. Well,
[00:07:59] Unknown:
sometimes the corporations well, in the beginning, the corporations can claim that they didn't know this was happening, but at this juncture there's no way that companies don't know this is happening because whether it's rights activists or labor rights monitoring groups have been exposing with, with the different reports, and we have been reaching out to companies and informing that this is happening, and we have been calling on calling them on urgently, ending their ties with the UHU region at every level of their supply chain. And this is really the the reason that I said it's urgent is because Uyghurs can't wait anymore.
[00:08:36] Unknown:
Right.
[00:08:37] Unknown:
This did not happen just a couple of years ago. It has been happen happening for years years years. And finally, we have attention from, you know, international community. And finally, you know, I have personally been calling on consumers to talk to the companies that they shop from the most, whether it's Walmart or Hugo Boss or Zara or Uniqlo or whatever brands that is. Talk to them, you know. We're consumers and we hold power, whether you or anyone who who who is listening to this. Yeah. We won't spend our money yet. Yes. And we have we don't have control over which companies, build a factory in whichever region or source from where. We don't have control over that, but we do have control over our own wallets.
And we can influence businesses over over that with our choice of, purchase. And we can influence them and make them know if they if you do if you don't choose to be on the right side of of the history, if you don't choose to be ethical, We don't want to spend our money on somebody's bloods and sweats and tears.
[00:09:44] Unknown:
So I'm trying to understand exactly how that process looks and where you have these forced laborers. It's practically slavery. Right? Yes. It's modern day slavery. So you have these you have this the slave labor that is going to these multinational factories to produce all this. How is the company like, how does that process work? Are they are they contracting out to basically Chinese government personnel that are bringing them workers?
[00:10:18] Unknown:
It's, so the supply chains are very complex. Usually, there are different it could be operating very differently throughout the whole region, even though they're just right next to each other. They could operate very differently. So there there's some circumstances. The even though the company, let's say the corporation has has been claiming, oh we've done our due diligence, here's our tier 1, tier 2, what about tier 3? What about the subcontractors? Have you found out where they're sourcing from? Where are they manufacturing? Who are making the products? Do you know? Have you really done your due diligence?
Oftentimes because companies have gotten so used to getting away from things, they have they haven't done their own real proper due diligence. And they kinda don't wanna know. Right? It costs lots of money and it does not only cost money, and you have to have experts, which another issue is that the due diligence mechanism that work elsewhere in the whole world doesn't work in China, and that's another problem. I'm not trying to defend, businesses. This is not an not an excuse. They have other choice, which is to leave the river region completely and exit the you know, we were forced to pay for completely. They do have that choice. They can't use this as an excuse that, oh, due diligence doesn't work, so we can provide you with, you know, our supply chain information. They can't use that information.
So because of the surveillance, because of the severity of the surveillance in the Ural region, not only the workers are monitored and not free, like, not feeling safe. They cannot feel safe to talk about their what they're really going through. If you have, basically, the workers are not allowed to talk to an investigator or, or an auditor separately. You will have your factory head of the factory or whatever it's called next to you. Will you really talk to if your boss is next talking to next to you and I interview you said tell me the flaw of this company. Will you tell me? And you are in the US in order to not lose your job or in order to not lose anything or lose your salary or And the stakes are even higher there. Exactly. For them it's not about losing job or losing money. It's about losing lives or facing more abuses. So and not only their own safety, their family members safety is all, they are also at risk. So there's no way to learn about the true conditions of the labor workers by just simply doing, you know, investigations, by talking to them, by interviewing them. It's just not possible. And second of all, not only workers' safety are not guaranteed.
Even auditors. There has been reports coming out that auditors were arrested the moment they got arrived in Urumqi Airport, when they arrived at the airport in the UHU region. So if auditors cannot even be granted, their safety cannot be granted, How do you expect workers
[00:13:07] Unknown:
Right. To tell the truth? So there's a whole system essentially in place Exactly. To hide this fact and keep it sheltered.
[00:13:15] Unknown:
That's why there's no way for any corporation from any sector to claim that they're completely free of forced labor unless they exit the Uyghur region at every level of their supply chain. We're not only talking about not operating inside the region. We're also talking about if you are even if you are outside of of the Uyghur region working in some mainland Chinese, you know, cities. But you will have to make sure that you're not unknowingly or knowingly sourcing from the Uyghur region, or hiring Uyghurs that are participating in forced cyber transfer programs in mainland mainland China, which is like Shandong, Beijing, China.
All across the country? Yes. They're all over the countries. There are more than like 80,000, just in one single report you found like, over 80,000 workers who has been transported. I think it was in 2020 or 2019. I forgot the exact date of this report, but just in one report you have seen, you learned that over 80,000 of the workers have been transported. Imagine other reports or those that we haven't even found out or that we haven't been able to be informed. Right. Talking about some sensitive issues
[00:14:27] Unknown:
can come with a lot of pressure, can come with a lot of pain. What difficulties are you finding with this particular mission? Where are your pain points?
[00:14:40] Unknown:
There are many. First of all, as I mentioned that there's so many different kinds of human rights abuses that are happening in the Uyghur region. Forced Labour is just one of them. Having to pick a focus, it's already difficult, but you can't I can definitely talk about everything, but I'm just one person. I can't, you know, talking about everything in the in a detailed way. So I had to pick a focus, and choosing that focus was difficult. And I just and I thought eventually I decided for sober forced labor will be the focus because the the existence of the forced labor of the Uyghur region, of the Uyghur workers, workers are in some way, if you think about it, they're funding the existence of all the other human rights abuses.
Because I was explaining this to somebody, earlier today. People would be like, oh, why don't you focus on that? Why don't you focus on this? Why don't you focus on that? So the Chinese government is not dumb. They're actually very smart people. They would not, they do not they would not do a business that will make them lose money or lose anything else. So locking up millions of people, building thousands of factories and, you know, detention centers, checkpoints, and having DNA collection, you know facial recognition system, they cost lots of money. And where do you think all this money come from? Did you really think the Chinese government would want to spend all this massive, 1,000,000,000 of dollars just on Uyghur people that they did not even want?
That did not want that they never cared about? I didn't think so. And so where do they where do they fill in the gap of all these money costs, or those financial costs? By putting Uyghurs to work, by making Uyghurs and putting them into work by not paying Uyghur workers by making them working on you know, more than 12 hours a day, not giving them any payment, and abusing them, they they can they get to indoctrinate them, brainwash them, and earn profits from from it. And then use those profits. And use those money to build more, surveillance camera, collect more DNA and abuse more people.
[00:17:10] Unknown:
So it seems this I mean, you talked about surveillance cameras, you talked about DNA logging. Is this it seems surveillance is a main aspect of how they do their oppression.
[00:17:23] Unknown:
It's one of it, but it's definitely how they started it. You know, first surveilling you by collecting your phone data, your computer data. And till now just a couple days ago, I had a weird login after I got into, after I arrived in Oslo. I had a weird login on my laptop, in my email and that is very frequent every few every few times every few days before I do an event, before I do an important talk, before I do something, anything, like, considered kind of unusual Right. There will be an unrecognized login attempt to my account. And I have come to the point that I'm so used to it, and I'm like, okay, just check whatever you want. I'm not doing anything behind the scenes anyways. Just learn about everything you want anyways. It frustrates me because who likes their privacy to be violated?
I don't think anyone would enjoy that. And, besides, you know, hacking into your your your phone, your email, I also know other rights advocates or researchers, and even, like, website, people who who does website, they have constantly face cyber attacks and face of, you know, their their information, their data that for for the research are at risk too. So it's and and the Chinese government collects those data, collects those information to use against you, but not only to threaten your own safety, but they can also use to threaten your families, and friends safety in order to make you shut up. I I I know, like, a lady, an activist, she used to write to newspapers anonymously, and she never she was never actively in front of the camera. So she thought there was no way the Chinese government knew, like, would know it was her that doing all these things. But then her picture was sent to her family, relatives back in the Uyghur region, and that family member reached out to her and said could you please shut up?
[00:19:33] Unknown:
They figured it out some other means and then they threatened the family. They threatened the so they threaten the activists by making the family.
[00:19:41] Unknown:
Right. So they would not talk to the activists themselves and saying I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this to you. They make the family approach saying if you don't do this I will die, or I will go to prison, or I something will happen to me, to you, so please shut up. It's brutal. Because of course we all care about our family members, we all love our family members. And oftentimes when it comes from a police person or from a secure state security, it angers us and make us, okay, I'm gonna do more. Right. But when it comes to our family members, we just feel sad and heartache and we said, yes, I will shut up.
[00:20:26] Unknown:
This is this is really heavy. I so we talked about surveillance, we talked about surveillance, we have these forced labor camps that they're running, is there, are there pain points in the, on the financial side, are they censoring payments, are they seizing bank accounts?
[00:20:52] Unknown:
Yes, so recently if you look up Google Google you will find, even on the Chinese Baidu you will find the Chinese government has been putting with over assets and, properties under, into auction, under auction into auction what is the preposition there that we use? Un auction? I don't know. They seize it and then they auction it off. Right? Yes. They auction it. So if you search from Chinese Baidu, which is a searching engine like like Google, you will find that the Chinese government has been, you know, confiscating Uber assets and properties and then auctioning auctioning it off. So and then you will wonder why the Chinese government is, you know, how many why there are so many properties and why there are so many assets out there for auction, available for auction, because those people are in a camp or a prison or they have died.
And the but in our usual country let's say if somebody died or or, disappeared or anything happened to them, the properties or the assets will go to their family members. Right. But no, it goes to the government. It goes to the Chinese government in for for the case of the Uyghurs. And also besides that, like for example, my family's case, my father, when he was arrested, the Chinese government froze our bank account. My stepmom, she had to raise 2 little kids all by herself in Beijing. Beijing is, like, one of the most expensive city to live in in China, and her salary was not good at all because she was a librarian and librarian in China does not earn a good salary. I don't know about other countries. Same in America.
It's very low. It's maybe like $500 to $600 in a month in in China and Beijing. And she had to raise 2 kids by herself. The Chinese government is so brutal that they do not consider anything that is going to like, any consequences that would happen, that would how it would affect other family members. And not talking about my family, if if you also, there's this lady from Australia. Her parents were both sentenced to 20 years for transferring money to her, so they could so the parents can support her to buy her first new house after she was married.
[00:23:11] Unknown:
How brutal is that? From China, sent to Australia
[00:23:14] Unknown:
To their own daughter? Yes. To their own daughter to buy a house for her to live live. And in and and this is in Uighur culture and also in most of Asian cultures too, which parents financially support their kids to buy their first home or to contribute to some part of the purchase of the new home, of the first home. And it's a part of the culture which Chinese people also practice that culture as well. So they should be under they should understand more than anyone that what are what this money was for, but the Chinese government sentenced them to 20 years and claimed that they were financially supporting overseas extremists or separatist groups, and this is a term that the Chinese government often used to justify their action.
And this is not just one single case. Many, many Uyghur families and daughters and sons they cannot, even like Uyghur students in the United States, they can't pay their tuitions anymore. Right. They have to they have to quit school. Some of them started doing IT because that was the shortest, takes shortest amount of time so they can get get into a job, so the job market and then can can actually pay off their debt or, you know, pay off their school tuition. I don't I'm not sure about for Americans who go within the States how much tuition that costs, but I know it's not as high compared to international students. I had to pay $43,000 for 1 year tuition plus the school housing.
And if family members are not supporting your teenage, you know, young adults, freshman or sophomore years kid who cannot legally work in the United States with their legal status, who is gonna financially support them. Right. And so those kids are forced to drop out of school even though they are doing brilliantly in school. And not all universities will be would be giving or having all this money to give to all the Uyghur students to cover their their tuition. So that's why, you know, I really hope whoever is listening this, if they really think if they're think thinking oh I don't want to be publicly supporting a political campaign because it might be risking this or that what you could do the least is to support an Uyghur student who is struggling financially to pay off their school debt, or who just want to simply take a computer course so they can actually find a job. Is there a specific organization that does that in the States? If they reach out to all the organizations they will be able to lead you. You just reach out to them say I want to find we were students who want to go to school.
If as long as as long as you do that, I'm sure any of the organization will be able available to connect you to someone.
[00:26:05] Unknown:
And you like, real change happens with with the youth. Right? That's gotta be a very powerful
[00:26:11] Unknown:
thing you can do. One sad thing that I want to point out is that because of Chinese government's repressive policies, the Uyghurs are at risk of not only losing our freedom of expression, but also losing our culture, our language, and our religion as well, our ties to our religion. Because, as I mentioned, I learned the Uyghur language after coming to the US at Indiana University because I was lucky enough they had Uyghur language program. I didn't know how to speak, you know, very well. I didn't know how to read or write at all. I learned it all in the United States. You grew up with Mandarin. Yes. I grew up with Mandarin. I only spoke very little Uyghur language because I was in Beijing and they don't have Uyghur language school there and you're not allowed to learn or practice, you know, your religion and school.
So, for many Uyghurs now it's not only not allowed in the way we're in Beijing anymore, they also don't don't allow it elsewhere. So in that case, one day slowly slowly maybe I will be the last person you know that speak your language, and we cannot make that happen. We cannot allow that happen. That's why if if also whoever is willing to contribute to the cause, fund a project that can maintain agriculture and, you know, language studies, contribute to, you know, schools like Indiana Universities who have language programs like this, or fund a university to make them have a language program like this, hire Uyghurs to make them start spreading, you know, Uyghur knowledge and cultures. This will be very helpful because who knows, maybe one day if we can preserve our Uyghur culture and language there, at least we can preserve it here.
Sorry. It's very stressful. I know.
[00:28:06] Unknown:
I,
[00:28:07] Unknown:
I mean, this is very important. Yeah. So it's an honor it's an honor to have you here. I don't normally do fundraising, but since we're talking to Bitcoin people, I thought I mean, put your money into used to something if you don't wanna be politically active, you know, but at least you can support people. So I mean, they're using
[00:28:25] Unknown:
the Chinese government is using the money against your people. They're using the financial system against your people. Mhmm. They're using surveillance systems against your people. It's a multifaceted
[00:28:38] Unknown:
oppression strategy. Yes. It's state sponsored, systematic and widespread.
[00:28:45] Unknown:
Are there I don't know if you're willing to share them but are there techniques that are being used to circumvent this oppression? Is there anything that's actually being effective on the ground?
[00:29:01] Unknown:
So first of all, US has been very vocal on this issue, on the Uyghur issue, and they have been very supportive of the work of the Uber advocates and activists, and that is great. Recently, just a few months ago, the US government has passed the Forced Labour Prevention Act, which it's a law it's a labor law that prevents any goods from the Uyghur region from entering the US. It's basically has a robotable presumption that presumes presumes presumes, presumes, that presumes that any products that are made within the Uyghur region could be taint are tainted by forced labor unless they have strong and clear evidence to, to prove otherwise.
So this is a really once it's enforced effectively, this will be one of the most effective tool to to to really tackle Force Saber and to really prevent Force SABR tinted goods from entering the US market. And what's most important thing is that it's great to have U. S. To pass such law, but does that really stop forced labour right there? No, because US is just one of the many many hundreds of countries. China can still redirect their shipments if they are blocked in the US. They go to Canada, they go to UK, they go to Europe, they can, they go to elsewhere. And that is why it's so crucial, it's so critical that all these companies, they actually, you know, apply the same single standard in all their market goods, not just to to to to to, not only in the US market, but all in mark all in all markets, including EU market, Australian market, Japanese market, Korean market, you know, all these markets. If they can have same unified standard and if governments if the companies don't do their job well, the government needs to step up and and to and also implement similar law like the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.
Otherwise, other countries, like, you know, European countries, UK, Australia, Japan, it will end up becoming dumping ground for labor force labor tainted goods, and I don't think any consumers want to see that. And I do believe that most consumers wouldn't want to purchase goods they knew were made or tainted by Uber Forks Labour. I don't think anyone would love that. Before I got into labor force labor work, if I knew something was definitely made by child labor, I would be like, oh, no. No. No. No. And I believe if anyone have learned or educated enough on this issue they wouldn't want to do that either, because I believe we're all human beings, and we all have conscience, and we all, no matter if you know me or not,
[00:31:56] Unknown:
we're all people. So if I'm understanding correctly, basically, the first step is more transparency, understanding where these products are coming from Coming from. And then there's actions by consumers, by corporations, by governments, external governments.
[00:32:13] Unknown:
Yes. To making to to implement laws laws that actually work can prevent goods that are tainted by forced labor from entering the country Because only with that it can really shift the minds of the Chinese government, at least I believe so.
[00:32:35] Unknown:
So before we started filming, we talked briefly about about Bitcoin, and you said that you're you're not very familiar with Bitcoin, that you don't really wanna talk on Bitcoin specifically. I'm curious if on a high level an idea of a money that cannot be stopped by a government, that is not controlled by any corporation, could be a powerful force of good for people that are oppressed around the world.
[00:33:10] Unknown:
So I don't know much about Bitcoin but I do know in order to operate Bitcoin you need computers. Right. And where are computers manufactured? Mostly in China. Exactly. So China, Taiwan. If you need to have huge space to to operate those computers to to to to to to Right. You know, manipulate those bitcoins, you know, currency thing. I don't know how exactly it works. Completely fine. You need a huge space. Right? Right. And, you know, Uyghur region Right. Is once the, the Uyghur region is one sixth of China's mass land that has only less than 20,000,000 of Uyghur population. So it's it's a huge space Right. That has huge factories Right. With perfect amount of workers right there that can manufacture computers because that lots of, major electronic brands Right.
Are made in China, especially in the rural region. And that is why, bitcoin mining is also at risk of using forced labor. And also as I mentioned, surveillance is another issue. Right. There's no safe way for people to use their phones or their laptops to safely use Bitcoin. Right. And and and, you know, to to to to to to I don't know. What is the word? Operate the service or Yeah. To send, receive Bitcoin. To receive Bitcoin safely. And privately without Without privately without the Chinese government's interference or monitoring them because everything is censored in China and everything is monitored and surveilled in China.
And, I was also mentioning this in in the talks that every few blocks in the Uyghur region you'll see checkpoints and police stations, and there you will see you will find police men sitting at a desk requiring you to deposit your phone in order to download, your data and upload surveillance of, softwares. And there's this one of the software names, which the Chinese government used to it has access to everything possibly possible in your phone. It doesn't matter if it's encrypted or not. And having something that is encrypted can subject you to a prison or to to be sent to a camp. Unlock it. Exactly.
Because why are you having encrypted things? Are you trying to hide something? Are you trying to plan something? Are you trying to attack the Chinese government? Are you trying to hide that you have extreme thoughts? So the Chinese government will automatically assume that you are a criminal the moment you have anything that is close to being encrypted in your cell phone, including Signal, including having having an app like Signal, and which is just just a chatting chatting, software. It's where people use to call someone or talk to someone. But having that or WhatsApp are considered are being criminalized.
[00:36:01] Unknown:
Yeah. So I mean I wanna be clear here that I'm not I'm not looking for you to endorse Bitcoin as a concept. Okay? I'm not telling you you should buy Bitcoin. I'm not asking you to tell other people they should buy Bitcoin. This issue is an issue that is very close to my heart in terms of digital privacy, digital security. It's something I spend a lot of time on. I do workshops with people educating them on it. In America, people take it for granted. Mhmm. They they say, I trust my government. They're not gonna spy on me. They're not gonna take my money. They do both of those things, but most Americans just don't consider that a a risk, period.
So one of my goals, there is there is this concept called open source software. I'm not sure. Are you familiar with the concept of open source software? So, you have open source software and you have closed source software. When you use your iPhone, for instance, the code that runs on the iPhone is owned by Apple. Apple knows the code. We don't know what is running, what that code is doing. They tell us you're making a phone call or you're doing this, but behind the scenes, anything could be happening. And governments like China take advantage of this closed source code because they can be spying on you doing all this other stuff and there's no way for a researcher to look at the code or a user to look at the code and know that that spying is happening and how that's happening. With open source software, it's software that is freely available for everyone.
Not free as in cost but free at it's also free as in cost but free as in freedom. So you can take that code, coders can change the code, they can update it, they can improve it, they can ship it out, anyone can inspect it. This is extremely powerful. This code is viral. It's not a single person is in control of it. Not a single corporation is in control of it. So it's very difficult for governments to stop its distribution from happening. So Bitcoin is open source code, but also signal is open source. So, like, the Chinese government can can put people in jail for using signal Mhmm. But most likely, they're not able to actually compromise signal without compromising the individual. They go for the individual because that's the weak point. But if you're using WeChat, they don't have to do that because they can just read everything. Right? So that's the difference between open source and closed source software.
So my belief is that through technological improvements in open source software communities around the world, we can provide people the tools in different oppressed regions, including your own, that allow them to have defensive improvements over who's ever oppressing them. I think Bitcoin is one tool in that arsenal in terms of money. I think encryption is one for speech. So they kind of go hand in hand. As far as the forced labor, I mean, no one wants I I I don't think any Bitcoiners want forced labor to be involved in Bitcoin. I will say that the the, China was, you know, one of the the leaders in mining for a long time, and the Chinese government got scared of it. And they they banned it, in 2020.
So they banned in 2020. A lot of the miners left. Some of them went to Kazakhstan. A lot of them came to America. Some went to Russia. They moved around the world. The manufacturing is still happening in China. I would not be surprised if it's using forced labor. I think it's probably just safe to assume that it is. I think it's safe to assume that our phones are are probably using some level of forced labor. Probably, you can, would would I be correct in saying you can most things that Americans are buying, there's different pieces of forced labor that are Yes. Mixed into them, like, even stuff like sneakers and stuff like that. Right? There's no sector that is
[00:40:03] Unknown:
completely free of the risk of being tainted, but we were we were forced labor. Yeah.
[00:40:09] Unknown:
But if we have for better or for worse, Bitcoin may be one of the unique ones that doesn't have a forced labor connection in 5 years because I believe the Chinese government finds it such a threat that they will stop allowing manufacturers to manufacture there. We already see companies like Intel. They don't make chips for iPhones and stuff in America, but they're starting to make them for Bitcoin because they know the Chinese are still gonna allow them to make iPhones over there, but they're afraid that they're not gonna allow them to make Bitcoin mining chips. Intel is actually one of the companies that was listed that they had links to Uber Force. That does not surprise me at all. Yeah. I mean, that absolutely does not surprise. All the electronics companies specifically are probably really bad.
But, yeah, anyway, that is I just wanted to explain to you where I'm coming from. Yeah. I definitely understand and I
[00:41:01] Unknown:
I honestly wish I knew more about how Bitcoin works too. And now I'm even like I know how shopping works and I love fashion right. I know I know about it very well and I'm scared to shop and I'm scared to, even though I know already more than an more than a lot of people already does. And I still don't know the the thing that I'm touching in the market or anything, if it's made by forced labor. I know some of the brands, which one I should specifically avoid, which of them that I should be avoiding, But there are also some of them are not on my list yet. And I know I it's hard very hard to avoid. That's why, I do believe one day with the technologies development and with governments around the world with their contribution, with their, you know, interfering in this matter.
I'm sure one day, you know, a lot of the sectors or a lot of the products we can one day can confidently say, oh, yes, it's free of forced labor. And I hope that day comes soon. I just think at this point, I am not confident yet with anything in this room, including the camera that are Right. That is filming us. This is a room full of forced labor. Yes. Yes. And I was also saying, that on the stage today when I was speaking, I was, like, including the camera in this room or the alphas could be tainted by the The alphas. The lights. Yes. The TV, the the cabinet, the trash can, the the plastic bags or or toilet paper even could be made by cuts and pulp that is transport trans transported into, imported into the country. So, it's it's definitely going to take time and effort.
But not only me or you, but by everyone.
[00:42:41] Unknown:
Yeah. I think one one main lesson that should be taken away from this conversation is that we can all do better and that we all must do better. And we can all work together on it. And we have to be humble enough to understand that we don't really know everything. Yes. And we can always be more aware of the situation and and try and improve from from a first principle basis from from yourself to others. So you have family in you have family in China. Tell us a little bit about that.
[00:43:11] Unknown:
Actually, besides me, everyone else are still in China. They're stuck. They cannot leave. They cannot have their passports. They cannot use their passports. Several of my family members have either been to the reeducation camp or are, have been, you know, locked up in prison, or are still in prison. For example, my dad, he's now actually serving a life sentence in prison under separatism related charges. My father was a well known economist, and he was also an outspoken advocate for Uyghur rights, and he has been calling on, equal rights for the Uyghur people and peaceful coexistence of the Uyghurs and Han Chinese, and calling out that there's discrimination going on and in the job markets and education system, and we need to build infrastructure in the Uyghur region. He has been calling calling out the flaws, you know, within the policies in the Weibo region and the Chinese government claim that as him inciting separatism.
So now he's serving a life sentence. And when was he arrested? He was arrested in 2014. I none of us have heard a word from him him since 2017. They don't give you any contact. Family members have not been able to visit him. We don't know if he's still in the same prison or if he has been transferred to another. The last time we heard, his condition was not great. He lost over £40 within a couple of months because When did you hear that? That was the beginning when he was first arrested
[00:44:47] Unknown:
and just within few months he passed on. So they don't even give you any kind of status or anything? No.
[00:44:52] Unknown:
We don't know anything happened. They don't When we tried to call the my family members tried to call the police, they hung up our phone, and not refusing to comment. But the people at the UN, the representative at the UN from the Chinese side had had been saying that my father is leaving, you know, grades in the prison having all his rights granted, which is completely not true. And besides my father, my cousin is also locked up in a prison. She's, she was sentenced to 10 years. Remember the checkpoints I mentioned earlier? She was actually stopped at one of those checkpoints, which the police, you know, was there to ask anyone to deposit their phones. She was stopped at one of those. She refused to turn in her cell phone. She was arrested, and for the non compliance, and for having a photo of my father in her cell phone, That's why she was sentenced to 10 years, and she was in her twenties.
And now she's spending the most beautiful years of her youth or of her life in in a Chinese prison. And if it's normal in normal culture time or in normal time she was a nurse she would have been married you know shopping with her friends. They took her life. Getting flowers and now she's now stuck in a prison and maybe working in a factory or Have you been able to contact her either? Not me. No. I'm the only person who is in the US and I'm too afraid to go back to China. I'm pretty sure the Chinese government wouldn't want me to go back and they have been trying to tell my family saying your daughter, your your your family, she's free to come back. Let her come back. She will be fine. She'll be fine. Of course. Of course. I believe you. Of course, I will be fine if I go back. I'm being sarcastic.
But they haven't threatened your other family members for your work? Or They make them to talk to me to let me shut up.
[00:46:47] Unknown:
They're like we're paying attention. We know what she's doing. Yes.
[00:46:51] Unknown:
Yes. I am very careful with what I say. I say nothing beside the truth. I say nothing besides the things that I've done research on. Right. But at the same time, that is also considered a threat to the Chinese government because according well, from with for them, I am bringing shame to their names.
[00:47:14] Unknown:
I'm so sorry to hear that. Thank you.
[00:47:19] Unknown:
It's not only happening to 1 family or 2 families. It's it's happening to thousands of families, thousands, hundreds of thousands of families out there. But oftentimes people would just consider it as numbers. When they hear, oh, millions of people are arrested, they just, oh, they have a very abstract idea. Oh, millions of people own numbers, but these are not just numbers. These are human beings, and they have flesh, and blood, and they have family members. They have their own sisters. They have their own daughters. They have their own brothers, uncles, grandma, grandpa. They have their loved ones or friends.
All of them do. All of them. And a lot of them, probably their entire family is locked up in different location. Someone I know have over 70 family relatives are locked up. Seventy. Imagine that number. It's it's a it's a number of of of a floor of this hotel room, I guess. Like, the guests All locked up. Yep. We're all locked up. No communication.
[00:48:29] Unknown:
No status. I have no idea what's happening. It's very
[00:48:33] Unknown:
I was also mentioning this earlier today that it is a normality now that having our rights taken away from us. The Chinese government treat us not as human beings. A lot of times, people would describe, oh, the Uyghurs are treated as secondary citizens in the Uyghur region. That is a very understatement. We're not only treated as secondary citizens, we're not even treated as human beings. They consider us as beasts, as animals, sometimes even less than animals.
[00:49:09] Unknown:
I can't I have nothing to respond to that. That's I've it's absolutely horrible. I hope we I I I hope I hope we can help. I hope people can help. Thank you. So the people, you know, listening to our conversation today, what are their best steps to to to improve their situation and to help your people?
[00:49:33] Unknown:
So the most crucial and the initial step should be educating themselves on this issue because people can't take action without knowing what's happening so they should first educate themselves on this. They should be informed, and after themselves are being that they are informed they need to share it with more people, their friends, their colleagues, their students, or their teachers, their their loved ones, for getting as many people as possible to learn about this, because you never know which audience you're gonna reach reach one day that could possibly make a shift in the situation.
And and after that is writing to their government officials, so whoever is listening to this talk to talk to your government officials. It doesn't matter which country you come from. Interact to them and make them propose laws that actually work. And then after that, write to the companies that they care about. You know, influence the companies that they shop from the most, whether it's, you know, Zara or Target or Walmart or Uniqlo or Hugo Boss, you know, all these brands have been known or reported that they have links to Uber Forged labor. Maybe, write to them and influence them, write to their CEOs, their sustainability department, directors, write to their campaign team, their media team, you know, it's a one single single Google search, and I'm sure Bitcoin people are better at computers than I am. Maybe that's a stereotype, but I'm very horrible at using technology. Very, very horrible, and I'm pretty sure most people are better than me. So if I can find something on Google within 5 minutes, you can do it probably within 3 minutes or 1 minute. So there's not a specific resource? It's there are. I will get to that really quick. There's also, for example, Humorize Foundation recently had this plug in called, We Were Forced April Brand Checker, which, that is, completely aligned with the brand list on the website of the Coalition to end Force Saber in the Uber region.
So in order for you to know, have a little sense of what are some of the brands are known to be complicit in Uyghur Forced Labor or who have links to Uyghur Forced Labor, you can download this plugin to your laptop, to your desktop. It doesn't work on the phone, but it works on Google Chrome. And once you, add the plug in, you go to if you love online shopping, let's say you go to the homepage of Zara. There will be a banner pop up saying, oh, this product might be tainted by Uber Forged Labor. Do you still want to shop from it? And if you click yes, then okay. Yes. You will keep shopping from them. If you click no, it will redirect you to the page. It's a, it's a page which introduce you what the Force Saver is about, you know, what are some of the pages that you should visit.
And then, beside the brand checker, you can also visit our website at the Coalition to End WeWork Forced Labour. The Labour is spelled the British way, l a b o u r, so please don't get that wrong. With that, you will be able to learn more about what's happening in the river region on the forced forced labor matter. We have selected articles, you know, in detailed, you know, including reports, you know, in one of the news section, and we also have a section called related actions, which can which you will find all the possible actions that you will be able to take from petitions to campaigns, to movies, to fashion show. We were, not only we were forced to, but on, you know, general we were cause you will be able to And that's the coalition
[00:53:16] Unknown:
to end forced labor with the u dot com. So, the coalition
[00:53:22] Unknown:
that's www.and, e n d, uyghur, forced, forcedlaborlabor.org. And we were forcedlabor.org. That's the website address.
[00:53:41] Unknown:
I just wanna thank you for joining us. It's it is honestly it is you're extremely brave, and you know I've been I've been working with HRF for a few years and really it's it just people like yourself who stand up really reinforce my position that there's there's nothing more important in this world than to to fight for human liberty and human freedom, and that we can't take that for granted. It needs to be defended, and it needs to be, you you need to push forward. You need to fight for it. Thank you. And,
[00:54:21] Unknown:
I have to say that I am actually not as brave as most people say that oh, they always tell me oh, you're so brave. I'm actually not that brave, and I am afraid all the time. I'm always scared a lot of times I can't even fall asleep, I wake up at 4 AM in the morning, or kind of sleep until 4 AM. I'm actually always scared, but I just really really care about my family, and I had to do something about it. And my family does not only involve my parents, my my cousins. My family is just a bigger it's just there are more members, which is the my Uyghur, all the Uyghur brothers and sisters, and, you know, all these who are their lives, innocent lives are are, you know, are trapped.
So, yeah, I just had to do something to save my family. Yeah. And no matter how scared I am, I just have to keep going.
Johar Ilam is an author and advocate for the Uber community and for imprisoned father, Uber economist Ilham Totti. Johar has testified before US Congress, published op eds in the New York Times and The Guardian, and received numerous international awards on behalf of her father, including the European Saccaro prize. In 2015 and then later in 2022, Jo Har released 2 books about their struggle and the fight for freedom. Jo Har currently works at the Workers Rights Consortium as forced labor project coordinator and serves as spokesperson for the coalition to end Uber forced labor. She is also assisting on the production of a new documentary film about Uggers and their fight called Static and Noise. Johar, thank you for joining me.
Your story is extremely powerful. It's very compelling story. So I think the best place for us to start here is is, you know, what brings you to Oslo? What is what is your mission here?
[00:00:58] Unknown:
So this is actually my first time, invited to speak to be speaking at the Oslo Freedom Forum. And today, I spoke about, how the Chinese government has been implementing repressive policies in the Uyghur region, and targeting the Uyghur people, you know, abusing, abusing the people, and violating our rights, and subjecting Uyghur's to, you know, widespread detention, and forced labor, and all kinds of other types of egregious human rights abuses.
[00:01:28] Unknown:
You were were you born in China?
[00:01:31] Unknown:
Yes. I was born and raised in Beijing, actually. I was not raised in my homeland, unfortunately, but I got to, I got to, learn and, learn about my own culture and my language after coming to the US because I was not free to do so when I was living in Beijing.
[00:01:51] Unknown:
So as an American, we talk about freedom a lot, but we don't experience our freedom being taken away on a firsthand basis. How does that shape you as an individual, and how you move forward with your life?
[00:02:09] Unknown:
So, in China, there there's no any forms of freedom of expression exist, no freedom of speech, no freedom of thought, and you will be surprised when I'm you will be like, how does freedom of thought even get how can anyone know what you're thinking? Right? I'm gonna explain to you about that in a little bit. And, freedom to speak, freedom to write, not only within the Weihua region, but also outside of the Weihua region. There's no any forms of freedom of expression in China, and it's mainly targeting the, Turkic ethnic minority groups, like Uyghurs, like the Kazakhs, like the Kyrgyz, but also the Chinese government has also been targeting their own people, the Han Chinese people as well. So anyone who dares to share their free will, their free minds, their free, you know, expression is going to be targeted.
And when I earlier mentioned about freedom to think Right. So now the Chinese government has been, as I mentioned, you know, implementing oppressive policies in the Uyghur region, locking up millions of people. Under in order to justify their actions, the Chinese government says that, says that they are, locking millions of people, because they are tainted by extremist thoughts, extremist thoughts, or, you know, separatist, thoughts. Don't you find this claim very odd? Because how do you know if this person is tainted by any kinds of thought or not. Read their mind. Exactly.
And often and also from this BBC interview that I've watched, it's a it's a docu short documentary. One of these detainees spoke to the journalist said, I was I am here studying because I had, the Chinese, government, our party, have found out that I was tainted by religious extremist thought, and the Chinese government saved me. When I saw that statement, my heart was breaking because he had to make that statement. He had to blame it on himself in order to save him or probably his family members from the Chinese government's you know, hands.
[00:04:30] Unknown:
So it seems that this idea of criminalized thought is is almost used as an excuse to persecute people that justify their actions. Right. To it's it's used as their reason, but it that's not the real reason. Right? Exactly. The real reason is power and control, presumably. Yes. The power and control. Actually, I mentioned that in my talk as
[00:04:54] Unknown:
well. The Uyghur region is full of natural resources, and it's it's it has great advantage for geopolitical value, their geopolitical value, and also because of the ethnic and culture differences between the Uyghurs and Han Chinese, which makes the Uyghurs or any group so threatening to the Chinese regime. Well, according to the Chinese government, for for them in their heads, that's probably how they're thinking, misassuming. And and it's really it's really frustrating because the Chinese government is getting away from these actions, even though they're labeling all Uyghur people as terrorists, as extremists, as separatists, and then putting them in prison, people are not doing much about it.
[00:05:45] Unknown:
Why do you think there's not more support in the West?
[00:05:51] Unknown:
It's all about the money. I mean, that definitely plays a part. It's not probably not completely because of, you know, the money. But definitely, I also mentioned that in my talk as well because of the, you know, China has been investing in hundreds of countries, like, with throughout with the Belt and Road Initiative project, which is China's flagship trade project, with the nearby countries countries that are located in, in in in Central Asia, you know, throughout those circle silk road lines, has been, you know, receiving help from the Chinese government, and the Chinese government have been has been building different kinds of infrastructures and infrastructures in those countries.
And, for example, a perfect example, Pakistan. Pakistan has been known on commenting on human rights abuses happening in all around the world, but they have been very silent on commenting on the Uighur issue. Why? The prime minister themselves had had stated, directly in one of, publicly in one of the interview he had, he said, oh, China has been, giving us lots of help. If we need to talk something we need to go under the table behind the scenes we cannot just publicly, you know, say that you're doing something wrong, like it's not the exact quote. But they don't want a repercussion there. Yes exactly, they don't want to lose the support
[00:07:17] Unknown:
from the Chinese government, and I'm sure that goes with lots of other countries as well. And probably even corporations. So you see US corporations that Not only is China's a massive market. Right? Yes.
[00:07:29] Unknown:
There are hundreds of corporations that are operating in the Uyghur region or outside of the Uyghur region, but still using Uyghur workers because the Chinese government has been transporting Uyghurs outside of the Uyghur region as part of the labor transport programs, working for multinational corporations under circum under conditions that strongly indicate forced labor.
[00:07:51] Unknown:
But they so the corporations in this situation are are pretending that it's not forced labor. Well, some are pretend. Well,
[00:07:59] Unknown:
sometimes the corporations well, in the beginning, the corporations can claim that they didn't know this was happening, but at this juncture there's no way that companies don't know this is happening because whether it's rights activists or labor rights monitoring groups have been exposing with, with the different reports, and we have been reaching out to companies and informing that this is happening, and we have been calling on calling them on urgently, ending their ties with the UHU region at every level of their supply chain. And this is really the the reason that I said it's urgent is because Uyghurs can't wait anymore.
[00:08:36] Unknown:
Right.
[00:08:37] Unknown:
This did not happen just a couple of years ago. It has been happen happening for years years years. And finally, we have attention from, you know, international community. And finally, you know, I have personally been calling on consumers to talk to the companies that they shop from the most, whether it's Walmart or Hugo Boss or Zara or Uniqlo or whatever brands that is. Talk to them, you know. We're consumers and we hold power, whether you or anyone who who who is listening to this. Yeah. We won't spend our money yet. Yes. And we have we don't have control over which companies, build a factory in whichever region or source from where. We don't have control over that, but we do have control over our own wallets.
And we can influence businesses over over that with our choice of, purchase. And we can influence them and make them know if they if you do if you don't choose to be on the right side of of the history, if you don't choose to be ethical, We don't want to spend our money on somebody's bloods and sweats and tears.
[00:09:44] Unknown:
So I'm trying to understand exactly how that process looks and where you have these forced laborers. It's practically slavery. Right? Yes. It's modern day slavery. So you have these you have this the slave labor that is going to these multinational factories to produce all this. How is the company like, how does that process work? Are they are they contracting out to basically Chinese government personnel that are bringing them workers?
[00:10:18] Unknown:
It's, so the supply chains are very complex. Usually, there are different it could be operating very differently throughout the whole region, even though they're just right next to each other. They could operate very differently. So there there's some circumstances. The even though the company, let's say the corporation has has been claiming, oh we've done our due diligence, here's our tier 1, tier 2, what about tier 3? What about the subcontractors? Have you found out where they're sourcing from? Where are they manufacturing? Who are making the products? Do you know? Have you really done your due diligence?
Oftentimes because companies have gotten so used to getting away from things, they have they haven't done their own real proper due diligence. And they kinda don't wanna know. Right? It costs lots of money and it does not only cost money, and you have to have experts, which another issue is that the due diligence mechanism that work elsewhere in the whole world doesn't work in China, and that's another problem. I'm not trying to defend, businesses. This is not an not an excuse. They have other choice, which is to leave the river region completely and exit the you know, we were forced to pay for completely. They do have that choice. They can't use this as an excuse that, oh, due diligence doesn't work, so we can provide you with, you know, our supply chain information. They can't use that information.
So because of the surveillance, because of the severity of the surveillance in the Ural region, not only the workers are monitored and not free, like, not feeling safe. They cannot feel safe to talk about their what they're really going through. If you have, basically, the workers are not allowed to talk to an investigator or, or an auditor separately. You will have your factory head of the factory or whatever it's called next to you. Will you really talk to if your boss is next talking to next to you and I interview you said tell me the flaw of this company. Will you tell me? And you are in the US in order to not lose your job or in order to not lose anything or lose your salary or And the stakes are even higher there. Exactly. For them it's not about losing job or losing money. It's about losing lives or facing more abuses. So and not only their own safety, their family members safety is all, they are also at risk. So there's no way to learn about the true conditions of the labor workers by just simply doing, you know, investigations, by talking to them, by interviewing them. It's just not possible. And second of all, not only workers' safety are not guaranteed.
Even auditors. There has been reports coming out that auditors were arrested the moment they got arrived in Urumqi Airport, when they arrived at the airport in the UHU region. So if auditors cannot even be granted, their safety cannot be granted, How do you expect workers
[00:13:07] Unknown:
Right. To tell the truth? So there's a whole system essentially in place Exactly. To hide this fact and keep it sheltered.
[00:13:15] Unknown:
That's why there's no way for any corporation from any sector to claim that they're completely free of forced labor unless they exit the Uyghur region at every level of their supply chain. We're not only talking about not operating inside the region. We're also talking about if you are even if you are outside of of the Uyghur region working in some mainland Chinese, you know, cities. But you will have to make sure that you're not unknowingly or knowingly sourcing from the Uyghur region, or hiring Uyghurs that are participating in forced cyber transfer programs in mainland mainland China, which is like Shandong, Beijing, China.
All across the country? Yes. They're all over the countries. There are more than like 80,000, just in one single report you found like, over 80,000 workers who has been transported. I think it was in 2020 or 2019. I forgot the exact date of this report, but just in one report you have seen, you learned that over 80,000 of the workers have been transported. Imagine other reports or those that we haven't even found out or that we haven't been able to be informed. Right. Talking about some sensitive issues
[00:14:27] Unknown:
can come with a lot of pressure, can come with a lot of pain. What difficulties are you finding with this particular mission? Where are your pain points?
[00:14:40] Unknown:
There are many. First of all, as I mentioned that there's so many different kinds of human rights abuses that are happening in the Uyghur region. Forced Labour is just one of them. Having to pick a focus, it's already difficult, but you can't I can definitely talk about everything, but I'm just one person. I can't, you know, talking about everything in the in a detailed way. So I had to pick a focus, and choosing that focus was difficult. And I just and I thought eventually I decided for sober forced labor will be the focus because the the existence of the forced labor of the Uyghur region, of the Uyghur workers, workers are in some way, if you think about it, they're funding the existence of all the other human rights abuses.
Because I was explaining this to somebody, earlier today. People would be like, oh, why don't you focus on that? Why don't you focus on this? Why don't you focus on that? So the Chinese government is not dumb. They're actually very smart people. They would not, they do not they would not do a business that will make them lose money or lose anything else. So locking up millions of people, building thousands of factories and, you know, detention centers, checkpoints, and having DNA collection, you know facial recognition system, they cost lots of money. And where do you think all this money come from? Did you really think the Chinese government would want to spend all this massive, 1,000,000,000 of dollars just on Uyghur people that they did not even want?
That did not want that they never cared about? I didn't think so. And so where do they where do they fill in the gap of all these money costs, or those financial costs? By putting Uyghurs to work, by making Uyghurs and putting them into work by not paying Uyghur workers by making them working on you know, more than 12 hours a day, not giving them any payment, and abusing them, they they can they get to indoctrinate them, brainwash them, and earn profits from from it. And then use those profits. And use those money to build more, surveillance camera, collect more DNA and abuse more people.
[00:17:10] Unknown:
So it seems this I mean, you talked about surveillance cameras, you talked about DNA logging. Is this it seems surveillance is a main aspect of how they do their oppression.
[00:17:23] Unknown:
It's one of it, but it's definitely how they started it. You know, first surveilling you by collecting your phone data, your computer data. And till now just a couple days ago, I had a weird login after I got into, after I arrived in Oslo. I had a weird login on my laptop, in my email and that is very frequent every few every few times every few days before I do an event, before I do an important talk, before I do something, anything, like, considered kind of unusual Right. There will be an unrecognized login attempt to my account. And I have come to the point that I'm so used to it, and I'm like, okay, just check whatever you want. I'm not doing anything behind the scenes anyways. Just learn about everything you want anyways. It frustrates me because who likes their privacy to be violated?
I don't think anyone would enjoy that. And, besides, you know, hacking into your your your phone, your email, I also know other rights advocates or researchers, and even, like, website, people who who does website, they have constantly face cyber attacks and face of, you know, their their information, their data that for for the research are at risk too. So it's and and the Chinese government collects those data, collects those information to use against you, but not only to threaten your own safety, but they can also use to threaten your families, and friends safety in order to make you shut up. I I I know, like, a lady, an activist, she used to write to newspapers anonymously, and she never she was never actively in front of the camera. So she thought there was no way the Chinese government knew, like, would know it was her that doing all these things. But then her picture was sent to her family, relatives back in the Uyghur region, and that family member reached out to her and said could you please shut up?
[00:19:33] Unknown:
They figured it out some other means and then they threatened the family. They threatened the so they threaten the activists by making the family.
[00:19:41] Unknown:
Right. So they would not talk to the activists themselves and saying I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this to you. They make the family approach saying if you don't do this I will die, or I will go to prison, or I something will happen to me, to you, so please shut up. It's brutal. Because of course we all care about our family members, we all love our family members. And oftentimes when it comes from a police person or from a secure state security, it angers us and make us, okay, I'm gonna do more. Right. But when it comes to our family members, we just feel sad and heartache and we said, yes, I will shut up.
[00:20:26] Unknown:
This is this is really heavy. I so we talked about surveillance, we talked about surveillance, we have these forced labor camps that they're running, is there, are there pain points in the, on the financial side, are they censoring payments, are they seizing bank accounts?
[00:20:52] Unknown:
Yes, so recently if you look up Google Google you will find, even on the Chinese Baidu you will find the Chinese government has been putting with over assets and, properties under, into auction, under auction into auction what is the preposition there that we use? Un auction? I don't know. They seize it and then they auction it off. Right? Yes. They auction it. So if you search from Chinese Baidu, which is a searching engine like like Google, you will find that the Chinese government has been, you know, confiscating Uber assets and properties and then auctioning auctioning it off. So and then you will wonder why the Chinese government is, you know, how many why there are so many properties and why there are so many assets out there for auction, available for auction, because those people are in a camp or a prison or they have died.
And the but in our usual country let's say if somebody died or or, disappeared or anything happened to them, the properties or the assets will go to their family members. Right. But no, it goes to the government. It goes to the Chinese government in for for the case of the Uyghurs. And also besides that, like for example, my family's case, my father, when he was arrested, the Chinese government froze our bank account. My stepmom, she had to raise 2 little kids all by herself in Beijing. Beijing is, like, one of the most expensive city to live in in China, and her salary was not good at all because she was a librarian and librarian in China does not earn a good salary. I don't know about other countries. Same in America.
It's very low. It's maybe like $500 to $600 in a month in in China and Beijing. And she had to raise 2 kids by herself. The Chinese government is so brutal that they do not consider anything that is going to like, any consequences that would happen, that would how it would affect other family members. And not talking about my family, if if you also, there's this lady from Australia. Her parents were both sentenced to 20 years for transferring money to her, so they could so the parents can support her to buy her first new house after she was married.
[00:23:11] Unknown:
How brutal is that? From China, sent to Australia
[00:23:14] Unknown:
To their own daughter? Yes. To their own daughter to buy a house for her to live live. And in and and this is in Uighur culture and also in most of Asian cultures too, which parents financially support their kids to buy their first home or to contribute to some part of the purchase of the new home, of the first home. And it's a part of the culture which Chinese people also practice that culture as well. So they should be under they should understand more than anyone that what are what this money was for, but the Chinese government sentenced them to 20 years and claimed that they were financially supporting overseas extremists or separatist groups, and this is a term that the Chinese government often used to justify their action.
And this is not just one single case. Many, many Uyghur families and daughters and sons they cannot, even like Uyghur students in the United States, they can't pay their tuitions anymore. Right. They have to they have to quit school. Some of them started doing IT because that was the shortest, takes shortest amount of time so they can get get into a job, so the job market and then can can actually pay off their debt or, you know, pay off their school tuition. I don't I'm not sure about for Americans who go within the States how much tuition that costs, but I know it's not as high compared to international students. I had to pay $43,000 for 1 year tuition plus the school housing.
And if family members are not supporting your teenage, you know, young adults, freshman or sophomore years kid who cannot legally work in the United States with their legal status, who is gonna financially support them. Right. And so those kids are forced to drop out of school even though they are doing brilliantly in school. And not all universities will be would be giving or having all this money to give to all the Uyghur students to cover their their tuition. So that's why, you know, I really hope whoever is listening this, if they really think if they're think thinking oh I don't want to be publicly supporting a political campaign because it might be risking this or that what you could do the least is to support an Uyghur student who is struggling financially to pay off their school debt, or who just want to simply take a computer course so they can actually find a job. Is there a specific organization that does that in the States? If they reach out to all the organizations they will be able to lead you. You just reach out to them say I want to find we were students who want to go to school.
If as long as as long as you do that, I'm sure any of the organization will be able available to connect you to someone.
[00:26:05] Unknown:
And you like, real change happens with with the youth. Right? That's gotta be a very powerful
[00:26:11] Unknown:
thing you can do. One sad thing that I want to point out is that because of Chinese government's repressive policies, the Uyghurs are at risk of not only losing our freedom of expression, but also losing our culture, our language, and our religion as well, our ties to our religion. Because, as I mentioned, I learned the Uyghur language after coming to the US at Indiana University because I was lucky enough they had Uyghur language program. I didn't know how to speak, you know, very well. I didn't know how to read or write at all. I learned it all in the United States. You grew up with Mandarin. Yes. I grew up with Mandarin. I only spoke very little Uyghur language because I was in Beijing and they don't have Uyghur language school there and you're not allowed to learn or practice, you know, your religion and school.
So, for many Uyghurs now it's not only not allowed in the way we're in Beijing anymore, they also don't don't allow it elsewhere. So in that case, one day slowly slowly maybe I will be the last person you know that speak your language, and we cannot make that happen. We cannot allow that happen. That's why if if also whoever is willing to contribute to the cause, fund a project that can maintain agriculture and, you know, language studies, contribute to, you know, schools like Indiana Universities who have language programs like this, or fund a university to make them have a language program like this, hire Uyghurs to make them start spreading, you know, Uyghur knowledge and cultures. This will be very helpful because who knows, maybe one day if we can preserve our Uyghur culture and language there, at least we can preserve it here.
Sorry. It's very stressful. I know.
[00:28:06] Unknown:
I,
[00:28:07] Unknown:
I mean, this is very important. Yeah. So it's an honor it's an honor to have you here. I don't normally do fundraising, but since we're talking to Bitcoin people, I thought I mean, put your money into used to something if you don't wanna be politically active, you know, but at least you can support people. So I mean, they're using
[00:28:25] Unknown:
the Chinese government is using the money against your people. They're using the financial system against your people. Mhmm. They're using surveillance systems against your people. It's a multifaceted
[00:28:38] Unknown:
oppression strategy. Yes. It's state sponsored, systematic and widespread.
[00:28:45] Unknown:
Are there I don't know if you're willing to share them but are there techniques that are being used to circumvent this oppression? Is there anything that's actually being effective on the ground?
[00:29:01] Unknown:
So first of all, US has been very vocal on this issue, on the Uyghur issue, and they have been very supportive of the work of the Uber advocates and activists, and that is great. Recently, just a few months ago, the US government has passed the Forced Labour Prevention Act, which it's a law it's a labor law that prevents any goods from the Uyghur region from entering the US. It's basically has a robotable presumption that presumes presumes presumes, presumes, that presumes that any products that are made within the Uyghur region could be taint are tainted by forced labor unless they have strong and clear evidence to, to prove otherwise.
So this is a really once it's enforced effectively, this will be one of the most effective tool to to to really tackle Force Saber and to really prevent Force SABR tinted goods from entering the US market. And what's most important thing is that it's great to have U. S. To pass such law, but does that really stop forced labour right there? No, because US is just one of the many many hundreds of countries. China can still redirect their shipments if they are blocked in the US. They go to Canada, they go to UK, they go to Europe, they can, they go to elsewhere. And that is why it's so crucial, it's so critical that all these companies, they actually, you know, apply the same single standard in all their market goods, not just to to to to to, not only in the US market, but all in mark all in all markets, including EU market, Australian market, Japanese market, Korean market, you know, all these markets. If they can have same unified standard and if governments if the companies don't do their job well, the government needs to step up and and to and also implement similar law like the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.
Otherwise, other countries, like, you know, European countries, UK, Australia, Japan, it will end up becoming dumping ground for labor force labor tainted goods, and I don't think any consumers want to see that. And I do believe that most consumers wouldn't want to purchase goods they knew were made or tainted by Uber Forks Labour. I don't think anyone would love that. Before I got into labor force labor work, if I knew something was definitely made by child labor, I would be like, oh, no. No. No. No. And I believe if anyone have learned or educated enough on this issue they wouldn't want to do that either, because I believe we're all human beings, and we all have conscience, and we all, no matter if you know me or not,
[00:31:56] Unknown:
we're all people. So if I'm understanding correctly, basically, the first step is more transparency, understanding where these products are coming from Coming from. And then there's actions by consumers, by corporations, by governments, external governments.
[00:32:13] Unknown:
Yes. To making to to implement laws laws that actually work can prevent goods that are tainted by forced labor from entering the country Because only with that it can really shift the minds of the Chinese government, at least I believe so.
[00:32:35] Unknown:
So before we started filming, we talked briefly about about Bitcoin, and you said that you're you're not very familiar with Bitcoin, that you don't really wanna talk on Bitcoin specifically. I'm curious if on a high level an idea of a money that cannot be stopped by a government, that is not controlled by any corporation, could be a powerful force of good for people that are oppressed around the world.
[00:33:10] Unknown:
So I don't know much about Bitcoin but I do know in order to operate Bitcoin you need computers. Right. And where are computers manufactured? Mostly in China. Exactly. So China, Taiwan. If you need to have huge space to to operate those computers to to to to to to Right. You know, manipulate those bitcoins, you know, currency thing. I don't know how exactly it works. Completely fine. You need a huge space. Right? Right. And, you know, Uyghur region Right. Is once the, the Uyghur region is one sixth of China's mass land that has only less than 20,000,000 of Uyghur population. So it's it's a huge space Right. That has huge factories Right. With perfect amount of workers right there that can manufacture computers because that lots of, major electronic brands Right.
Are made in China, especially in the rural region. And that is why, bitcoin mining is also at risk of using forced labor. And also as I mentioned, surveillance is another issue. Right. There's no safe way for people to use their phones or their laptops to safely use Bitcoin. Right. And and and, you know, to to to to to to I don't know. What is the word? Operate the service or Yeah. To send, receive Bitcoin. To receive Bitcoin safely. And privately without Without privately without the Chinese government's interference or monitoring them because everything is censored in China and everything is monitored and surveilled in China.
And, I was also mentioning this in in the talks that every few blocks in the Uyghur region you'll see checkpoints and police stations, and there you will see you will find police men sitting at a desk requiring you to deposit your phone in order to download, your data and upload surveillance of, softwares. And there's this one of the software names, which the Chinese government used to it has access to everything possibly possible in your phone. It doesn't matter if it's encrypted or not. And having something that is encrypted can subject you to a prison or to to be sent to a camp. Unlock it. Exactly.
Because why are you having encrypted things? Are you trying to hide something? Are you trying to plan something? Are you trying to attack the Chinese government? Are you trying to hide that you have extreme thoughts? So the Chinese government will automatically assume that you are a criminal the moment you have anything that is close to being encrypted in your cell phone, including Signal, including having having an app like Signal, and which is just just a chatting chatting, software. It's where people use to call someone or talk to someone. But having that or WhatsApp are considered are being criminalized.
[00:36:01] Unknown:
Yeah. So I mean I wanna be clear here that I'm not I'm not looking for you to endorse Bitcoin as a concept. Okay? I'm not telling you you should buy Bitcoin. I'm not asking you to tell other people they should buy Bitcoin. This issue is an issue that is very close to my heart in terms of digital privacy, digital security. It's something I spend a lot of time on. I do workshops with people educating them on it. In America, people take it for granted. Mhmm. They they say, I trust my government. They're not gonna spy on me. They're not gonna take my money. They do both of those things, but most Americans just don't consider that a a risk, period.
So one of my goals, there is there is this concept called open source software. I'm not sure. Are you familiar with the concept of open source software? So, you have open source software and you have closed source software. When you use your iPhone, for instance, the code that runs on the iPhone is owned by Apple. Apple knows the code. We don't know what is running, what that code is doing. They tell us you're making a phone call or you're doing this, but behind the scenes, anything could be happening. And governments like China take advantage of this closed source code because they can be spying on you doing all this other stuff and there's no way for a researcher to look at the code or a user to look at the code and know that that spying is happening and how that's happening. With open source software, it's software that is freely available for everyone.
Not free as in cost but free at it's also free as in cost but free as in freedom. So you can take that code, coders can change the code, they can update it, they can improve it, they can ship it out, anyone can inspect it. This is extremely powerful. This code is viral. It's not a single person is in control of it. Not a single corporation is in control of it. So it's very difficult for governments to stop its distribution from happening. So Bitcoin is open source code, but also signal is open source. So, like, the Chinese government can can put people in jail for using signal Mhmm. But most likely, they're not able to actually compromise signal without compromising the individual. They go for the individual because that's the weak point. But if you're using WeChat, they don't have to do that because they can just read everything. Right? So that's the difference between open source and closed source software.
So my belief is that through technological improvements in open source software communities around the world, we can provide people the tools in different oppressed regions, including your own, that allow them to have defensive improvements over who's ever oppressing them. I think Bitcoin is one tool in that arsenal in terms of money. I think encryption is one for speech. So they kind of go hand in hand. As far as the forced labor, I mean, no one wants I I I don't think any Bitcoiners want forced labor to be involved in Bitcoin. I will say that the the, China was, you know, one of the the leaders in mining for a long time, and the Chinese government got scared of it. And they they banned it, in 2020.
So they banned in 2020. A lot of the miners left. Some of them went to Kazakhstan. A lot of them came to America. Some went to Russia. They moved around the world. The manufacturing is still happening in China. I would not be surprised if it's using forced labor. I think it's probably just safe to assume that it is. I think it's safe to assume that our phones are are probably using some level of forced labor. Probably, you can, would would I be correct in saying you can most things that Americans are buying, there's different pieces of forced labor that are Yes. Mixed into them, like, even stuff like sneakers and stuff like that. Right? There's no sector that is
[00:40:03] Unknown:
completely free of the risk of being tainted, but we were we were forced labor. Yeah.
[00:40:09] Unknown:
But if we have for better or for worse, Bitcoin may be one of the unique ones that doesn't have a forced labor connection in 5 years because I believe the Chinese government finds it such a threat that they will stop allowing manufacturers to manufacture there. We already see companies like Intel. They don't make chips for iPhones and stuff in America, but they're starting to make them for Bitcoin because they know the Chinese are still gonna allow them to make iPhones over there, but they're afraid that they're not gonna allow them to make Bitcoin mining chips. Intel is actually one of the companies that was listed that they had links to Uber Force. That does not surprise me at all. Yeah. I mean, that absolutely does not surprise. All the electronics companies specifically are probably really bad.
But, yeah, anyway, that is I just wanted to explain to you where I'm coming from. Yeah. I definitely understand and I
[00:41:01] Unknown:
I honestly wish I knew more about how Bitcoin works too. And now I'm even like I know how shopping works and I love fashion right. I know I know about it very well and I'm scared to shop and I'm scared to, even though I know already more than an more than a lot of people already does. And I still don't know the the thing that I'm touching in the market or anything, if it's made by forced labor. I know some of the brands, which one I should specifically avoid, which of them that I should be avoiding, But there are also some of them are not on my list yet. And I know I it's hard very hard to avoid. That's why, I do believe one day with the technologies development and with governments around the world with their contribution, with their, you know, interfering in this matter.
I'm sure one day, you know, a lot of the sectors or a lot of the products we can one day can confidently say, oh, yes, it's free of forced labor. And I hope that day comes soon. I just think at this point, I am not confident yet with anything in this room, including the camera that are Right. That is filming us. This is a room full of forced labor. Yes. Yes. And I was also saying, that on the stage today when I was speaking, I was, like, including the camera in this room or the alphas could be tainted by the The alphas. The lights. Yes. The TV, the the cabinet, the trash can, the the plastic bags or or toilet paper even could be made by cuts and pulp that is transport trans transported into, imported into the country. So, it's it's definitely going to take time and effort.
But not only me or you, but by everyone.
[00:42:41] Unknown:
Yeah. I think one one main lesson that should be taken away from this conversation is that we can all do better and that we all must do better. And we can all work together on it. And we have to be humble enough to understand that we don't really know everything. Yes. And we can always be more aware of the situation and and try and improve from from a first principle basis from from yourself to others. So you have family in you have family in China. Tell us a little bit about that.
[00:43:11] Unknown:
Actually, besides me, everyone else are still in China. They're stuck. They cannot leave. They cannot have their passports. They cannot use their passports. Several of my family members have either been to the reeducation camp or are, have been, you know, locked up in prison, or are still in prison. For example, my dad, he's now actually serving a life sentence in prison under separatism related charges. My father was a well known economist, and he was also an outspoken advocate for Uyghur rights, and he has been calling on, equal rights for the Uyghur people and peaceful coexistence of the Uyghurs and Han Chinese, and calling out that there's discrimination going on and in the job markets and education system, and we need to build infrastructure in the Uyghur region. He has been calling calling out the flaws, you know, within the policies in the Weibo region and the Chinese government claim that as him inciting separatism.
So now he's serving a life sentence. And when was he arrested? He was arrested in 2014. I none of us have heard a word from him him since 2017. They don't give you any contact. Family members have not been able to visit him. We don't know if he's still in the same prison or if he has been transferred to another. The last time we heard, his condition was not great. He lost over £40 within a couple of months because When did you hear that? That was the beginning when he was first arrested
[00:44:47] Unknown:
and just within few months he passed on. So they don't even give you any kind of status or anything? No.
[00:44:52] Unknown:
We don't know anything happened. They don't When we tried to call the my family members tried to call the police, they hung up our phone, and not refusing to comment. But the people at the UN, the representative at the UN from the Chinese side had had been saying that my father is leaving, you know, grades in the prison having all his rights granted, which is completely not true. And besides my father, my cousin is also locked up in a prison. She's, she was sentenced to 10 years. Remember the checkpoints I mentioned earlier? She was actually stopped at one of those checkpoints, which the police, you know, was there to ask anyone to deposit their phones. She was stopped at one of those. She refused to turn in her cell phone. She was arrested, and for the non compliance, and for having a photo of my father in her cell phone, That's why she was sentenced to 10 years, and she was in her twenties.
And now she's spending the most beautiful years of her youth or of her life in in a Chinese prison. And if it's normal in normal culture time or in normal time she was a nurse she would have been married you know shopping with her friends. They took her life. Getting flowers and now she's now stuck in a prison and maybe working in a factory or Have you been able to contact her either? Not me. No. I'm the only person who is in the US and I'm too afraid to go back to China. I'm pretty sure the Chinese government wouldn't want me to go back and they have been trying to tell my family saying your daughter, your your your family, she's free to come back. Let her come back. She will be fine. She'll be fine. Of course. Of course. I believe you. Of course, I will be fine if I go back. I'm being sarcastic.
But they haven't threatened your other family members for your work? Or They make them to talk to me to let me shut up.
[00:46:47] Unknown:
They're like we're paying attention. We know what she's doing. Yes.
[00:46:51] Unknown:
Yes. I am very careful with what I say. I say nothing beside the truth. I say nothing besides the things that I've done research on. Right. But at the same time, that is also considered a threat to the Chinese government because according well, from with for them, I am bringing shame to their names.
[00:47:14] Unknown:
I'm so sorry to hear that. Thank you.
[00:47:19] Unknown:
It's not only happening to 1 family or 2 families. It's it's happening to thousands of families, thousands, hundreds of thousands of families out there. But oftentimes people would just consider it as numbers. When they hear, oh, millions of people are arrested, they just, oh, they have a very abstract idea. Oh, millions of people own numbers, but these are not just numbers. These are human beings, and they have flesh, and blood, and they have family members. They have their own sisters. They have their own daughters. They have their own brothers, uncles, grandma, grandpa. They have their loved ones or friends.
All of them do. All of them. And a lot of them, probably their entire family is locked up in different location. Someone I know have over 70 family relatives are locked up. Seventy. Imagine that number. It's it's a it's a number of of of a floor of this hotel room, I guess. Like, the guests All locked up. Yep. We're all locked up. No communication.
[00:48:29] Unknown:
No status. I have no idea what's happening. It's very
[00:48:33] Unknown:
I was also mentioning this earlier today that it is a normality now that having our rights taken away from us. The Chinese government treat us not as human beings. A lot of times, people would describe, oh, the Uyghurs are treated as secondary citizens in the Uyghur region. That is a very understatement. We're not only treated as secondary citizens, we're not even treated as human beings. They consider us as beasts, as animals, sometimes even less than animals.
[00:49:09] Unknown:
I can't I have nothing to respond to that. That's I've it's absolutely horrible. I hope we I I I hope I hope we can help. I hope people can help. Thank you. So the people, you know, listening to our conversation today, what are their best steps to to to improve their situation and to help your people?
[00:49:33] Unknown:
So the most crucial and the initial step should be educating themselves on this issue because people can't take action without knowing what's happening so they should first educate themselves on this. They should be informed, and after themselves are being that they are informed they need to share it with more people, their friends, their colleagues, their students, or their teachers, their their loved ones, for getting as many people as possible to learn about this, because you never know which audience you're gonna reach reach one day that could possibly make a shift in the situation.
And and after that is writing to their government officials, so whoever is listening to this talk to talk to your government officials. It doesn't matter which country you come from. Interact to them and make them propose laws that actually work. And then after that, write to the companies that they care about. You know, influence the companies that they shop from the most, whether it's, you know, Zara or Target or Walmart or Uniqlo or Hugo Boss, you know, all these brands have been known or reported that they have links to Uber Forged labor. Maybe, write to them and influence them, write to their CEOs, their sustainability department, directors, write to their campaign team, their media team, you know, it's a one single single Google search, and I'm sure Bitcoin people are better at computers than I am. Maybe that's a stereotype, but I'm very horrible at using technology. Very, very horrible, and I'm pretty sure most people are better than me. So if I can find something on Google within 5 minutes, you can do it probably within 3 minutes or 1 minute. So there's not a specific resource? It's there are. I will get to that really quick. There's also, for example, Humorize Foundation recently had this plug in called, We Were Forced April Brand Checker, which, that is, completely aligned with the brand list on the website of the Coalition to end Force Saber in the Uber region.
So in order for you to know, have a little sense of what are some of the brands are known to be complicit in Uyghur Forced Labor or who have links to Uyghur Forced Labor, you can download this plugin to your laptop, to your desktop. It doesn't work on the phone, but it works on Google Chrome. And once you, add the plug in, you go to if you love online shopping, let's say you go to the homepage of Zara. There will be a banner pop up saying, oh, this product might be tainted by Uber Forged Labor. Do you still want to shop from it? And if you click yes, then okay. Yes. You will keep shopping from them. If you click no, it will redirect you to the page. It's a, it's a page which introduce you what the Force Saver is about, you know, what are some of the pages that you should visit.
And then, beside the brand checker, you can also visit our website at the Coalition to End WeWork Forced Labour. The Labour is spelled the British way, l a b o u r, so please don't get that wrong. With that, you will be able to learn more about what's happening in the river region on the forced forced labor matter. We have selected articles, you know, in detailed, you know, including reports, you know, in one of the news section, and we also have a section called related actions, which can which you will find all the possible actions that you will be able to take from petitions to campaigns, to movies, to fashion show. We were, not only we were forced to, but on, you know, general we were cause you will be able to And that's the coalition
[00:53:16] Unknown:
to end forced labor with the u dot com. So, the coalition
[00:53:22] Unknown:
that's www.and, e n d, uyghur, forced, forcedlaborlabor.org. And we were forcedlabor.org. That's the website address.
[00:53:41] Unknown:
I just wanna thank you for joining us. It's it is honestly it is you're extremely brave, and you know I've been I've been working with HRF for a few years and really it's it just people like yourself who stand up really reinforce my position that there's there's nothing more important in this world than to to fight for human liberty and human freedom, and that we can't take that for granted. It needs to be defended, and it needs to be, you you need to push forward. You need to fight for it. Thank you. And,
[00:54:21] Unknown:
I have to say that I am actually not as brave as most people say that oh, they always tell me oh, you're so brave. I'm actually not that brave, and I am afraid all the time. I'm always scared a lot of times I can't even fall asleep, I wake up at 4 AM in the morning, or kind of sleep until 4 AM. I'm actually always scared, but I just really really care about my family, and I had to do something about it. And my family does not only involve my parents, my my cousins. My family is just a bigger it's just there are more members, which is the my Uyghur, all the Uyghur brothers and sisters, and, you know, all these who are their lives, innocent lives are are, you know, are trapped.
So, yeah, I just had to do something to save my family. Yeah. And no matter how scared I am, I just have to keep going.
Introducing Jewher
Jewher mission at Oslo Freedom Forum
Authoritarianism in China
Why there hasn't been support for the Uyghurs
How companies operate in the Uyghur region
Discussion on forced labor conditions, likening it to modern-day slavery, and the challenges in uncovering and addressing forced labor practices.
Challenges with advocating for the Uyghurs
The surveillance state in China
Financial censorship in China
Preserving the Uyghur culture
Circumventing oppression in China
Could Bitcoin help the Uyghurs?
Jewher's family in China
Taking action against companies linked to forced labor
