DHS Expands Forced Labor Import Ban to Key Sectors
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has broadened its enforcement of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), adding steel, copper, lithium, caustic soda, and red dates to the list of high-priority imports subject to inspection. These products, widely used across industries from electronics and textiles to food and energy, will now face stricter scrutiny by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
As of August 1, CBP has stopped over 16,700 shipments valued at $3.7 billion, rejecting around 10,000 shipments worth nearly $900 million for links to Uyghur forced labor.
China’s Propaganda Campaigns in the Middle East and North Africa Exposed
The Center for Uyghur Studies (CUS) has released a new report, “Exposing China’s Propaganda Campaigns in MENA,” documenting how the Chinese Communist Party spreads disinformation across the Middle East and North Africa to whitewash its genocide of Uyghur Muslims.
The report shows how Beijing uses Arabic-language state media, fake social media accounts, economic leverage, cultural diplomacy, and even religious outreach to silence criticism, distort Muslim solidarity, and legitimize repression. It warns that China’s coordinated propaganda—often reinforced by Russian and Iranian outlets—is shrinking space for independent journalism and shaping pro-Beijing narratives in the region.
Executive Director Abdulhakim Idris called the report a “wake-up call” for governments, media, and civil society to defend truth and solidarity with Uyghur Muslims. The study concludes with recommendations to strengthen independent journalism, fact-checking, and transparency in order to counter Beijing’s influence.
China’s Genocide and the Eliticide of Uyghur Scholars
On August 19, The Diplomat published an article by Omer Kanat, President of the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP), highlighting the ongoing imprisonment of Uyghur intellectuals such as poet Dr. Abdulqadir Jalaleddin and ethnographer Dr. Rahile Dawut. Both have been held incommunicado for years—Jalaleddin since 2018 and Dawut since 2017—denied contact with their families and serving long prison sentences. Their cases reflect the Chinese government’s systematic campaign to silence Uyghur scholars, writers, and cultural figures as part of its genocide in East Turkistan.
Kanat stressed that erasing Uyghur intellectual life is central to Beijing’s genocidal project, describing it as a “new form of eliticide” aimed at destroying Uyghur identity and heritage. He urged governments, universities, and publishers to take stronger action, including pressing for the release of detainees by name, refusing cooperation with Chinese institutions complicit in repression, and ensuring that the persecution of Uyghur intellectuals is not ignored