Týden Akademie věd: Uyghurs in China and in the European Diaspora

Uyghurs in China and in the European Diaspora

📅 Tuesday, November 4, 2025, 6:00 PM
📍 Klub Celetná, Prague

The Uyghurs are a Turkic ethnic group of more than ten million people, living predominantly in East Turkestan (aka China's region of Xinjiang). Since the early 2000s, an increasing number of reports have documented systematic persecution by the Chinese authorities, including forced labour, cultural “re-education,” and mass internment.

The film Nikah (2024, 56 min, directed by Bastien Ehouzan and Mukaddas Mijit) tells the story of 27-year-old Dilber, a Uyghur woman living in East Turkestan. As Chinese repression intensifies and family pressure to marry grows, a potential “escape” appears in the form of marriage to a man living in Paris. But is it truly the right path?

(The film is in Uyghur with English subtitles. Free entry)

After the screening, there will be a discussion with Dilnur Reyhan and Ondřej Klimeš from the Oriental institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, focusing on the current situation of the Uyghur people both in China and in the European diaspora.

(The discussion will be held in Czech and English.)

🎙 Speakers

Dilnur Reyhan

Sociologist and senior researcher at the Oriental Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Her research is currently based on colonialism, genocide and decolonial studies. She is the founder and president of the European Uyghur Institute (Institut ouïghour d’Europe), which supports cultural and educational projects in Uyghur diaspora and raises awareness on the Uyghur genocide under Chinese colonialism. 

Ondřej Klimeš is Research Fellow at the Oriental Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences. His expertise is in the politics of modern East Turkistan/Xinjiang and China with a particular interest in ethnic policy, political system, ideology and propaganda, and the Uyghur national movement