The pressure group Avaaz is calling on Kiwis to aid the oppressed Muslim Uighurs in China by joining a world boycott of pension funds which invest in China.

Avaaz is a U.S.-based nonprofit organization which promotes global activism on climate change, human rights, corruption, poverty, and conflict. The UK newspaper The Guardian considers it “the globe’s largest and most powerful online activist network.”

Avaaz says for 62 days Zumrat Dawut was locked up, tortured, and then forcibly sterilised. All because she is a Uighur, part of the Muslim minority in China.

One million Uighurs have been sent to massive internment camps in China — forced to reject their religion and language, Avaaz says, adding ‘It’s so brutal that, to get food, they even have to praise China’s President and the Communist Party!’

Giant tech firms are a crucial piece of it. They set up 24 hour state surveillance using A.I, face recognition and DNA testing to make sure the Uighurs are monitored — all supported by millions of dollars from global pension funds, Avaaz says.

It says the boards of two key major pension funds are due to meet — ‘let’s show up at the meeting with one million signatures and a delegation of Uighur survivors, and call on them to divest now.’

‘Stop funding China’s brainwashing camps‘

Avaaz says over one million Uighurs are locked up in these internment camps. The Chinese officials and tech companies who created this cultural genocide count on the fact that investors and pension funds around the world will keep the money flowing in.

‘A global call now could be a game-changer to open their eyes for what they’re doing to innocent people, just because of their faith. 

‘Two of the world’s largest pension funds, CalPERS and CalSTRS have hundreds of millions invested in China’s tech giants, and one of them already divested from a mining project operating in the Xinjiang province, where the Uighurs are located! With our pressure, they can take the next step and completely divest. 

Avaaz also says: ‘Sign to get pension funds to stop financing China’s massive internment camps — when 1 million join, we’ll bring our voices to the key meetings in California and take our fight to the rest of the world:

SIGN THE PETITION

Stop funding China’s brainwashing camps

‘Time and again our community has stood with brave minority groups fighting for their right to exist. From the indigenous in the Amazon to the Massai people in Kenya, we have many times amplified their voices.

‘Let’s do it again, this may be the only chance of survival of millions of Uighurs and their children in China.  We cannot turn a blind eye. Join now.’