We are in Turkey.
In this country there are more than 30,000
people of Uighur ethnicity,
who have been exiled for either
economic or political reasons.
The Uighurs are Muslims from the Chinese province of Xinjiang
who speak a language from the same branch as Turkish.
Hence, for those who decide to migrate
from this region, which they call East Turkistan,
Turkey is a natural destination.
We sneak into the home of Mahmut Kashgarli,
a retired university professor who
has been living in Istanbul since 1983.
Since we are under the domination of
Communist China, there is political pressure.
There is also economic injustice.
That region is very rich, but the Chinese take out
the wealth and don't share it with the locals.
My father.
Mahmut Kashgarli was born in 1937,
shortly after the foundation of
the Islamic Republic of East Turkestan,
an independent state that
lasted only two years.
When Kashgarli was only six months old,
his grandmother asked his father to
take her to make the pilgrimage to Mecca.
They arrived one or two days too late because
they went from East Turkistan to Kyrgyzstan,
from Bishkek to Tashkent,
from Tashkent to Moscow,
from Moscow to Odessa, from there
through the Black Sea to Turkey,
in Turkey to Izmir, from there to Alexandria,
Cairo, and from there to Jedda.
To avoid repeating the trip, his father,
Davut Kashgarli, and his grandmother
decided to stay in Saudi Arabia for one year.
But, in the meantime, the
Chinese nationalist troops
crushed the independence of
East Turkistan, closing borders.
Mahmut Kashgarli didn't see his father
again until he escaped in 1982.
I used to worry a lot. I am a person
who deeply feels his freedom of thinking,
and I don't stay silent. So I was afraid,
and I thought I would be punished.
I wanted my children to study,
to get a good education,
either in Turkey or in another country.
I wanted them to go to the university.
In 1983, Mahmut Kashgarli started to work as a university professor,
teaching Uighur and Uzbek.
At the same time, he learned Turkish
by speaking with his students.
I got them to study Uighur,
step by step they were understanding,
and I also learned from them Turkish from Turkey,
which is very similar to Uighur.
For example, we say "nose" the same way
in the Kashgar dialect as in Turkish,
and "ear" and "eyebrow,"
"head,"  "face."
Rice.
And this is a soup.
This is tea.
It's possible to continue with your life here.
It is not difficult.
Integration is very easy because
both languages are very similar.
Among us, if any family is
facing economic difficulties,
we gather some help and give it to them.
There is a lot of solidarity.
Hello.
- Hello.
How are you?
Are you being filmed?
- Yes.
You are becoming famous.
For a long time, Kyrgyz, Kazakhs and Uighurs
have been coming to Turkey from East Turkistan.
As far back as the Ottoman period, they used
to travel to Mecca through Turkey,
and many of them stayed.
Since he retired from the university,
Kashgarli works
in a political association called
the East Turkistan Foundation,
which is devoted to promoting the cause of an
independent Uighur state.
I can't close my eyes to what is
happening to my nation.
I can't remain passive.
China says that Uighurs from East Turkistan
are terrorists, Islamic radicals and separatists.
I affirm that it is completely out of the question
that there could be any link
between East Turkistan people and terrorism.
People in East Turkistan have nothing;
they don't even have weapons!
If we had the opportunity to
decide our own destiny,
if we could live freely, we would return there,
because it is a wish that is in our hearts,
and ours is really a very beautiful land.
