80+ Global Science-Fiction Fantasy Authors Condemn China Hosting the 2023 WorldCon Awards In An Open Letter
March 2nd 2022
In the midst of the Ukraine invasion, threats to Taiwan, and Uyghur genocide, over 80 award-winning and bestselling writers from across the world as well as Uyghur human rights groups have condemned China’s right to host the 2023 WorldCon awards in an open letter.
The joint letter is addressed to the WorldCon committee and voters, bringing together a coalition of global science-fiction and fantasy writers to condemn the WorldCon committee for allowing Chengdu, China to bid for the 81st World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon) – a bid that they won.
The letter calls on the literary community to appeal to the committee and community in charge of allocating the honour of hosting the world’s most prestigious science-fiction fantasy awards, requesting them to relocate the 2023 event out of China. The author signatories, many of whom are New York Times bestselling authors and Hugo award winners, include members of the WorldCon community.
WorldCon community members vote on which country’s bid will win the right to host the Con. The vote was taken at DisCon III, the 2021 Worldcon in Washington DC on December 18, 2021. The four bidders were France, United States, Canada, and China. Despite the Chinese government’s ongoing genocide against Uyghur and Turkic Muslim minorities in the Uyghur region (Xinjiang), the bid was won by Chengdu. Prominent signatories include Hugo winners, nominees and bestsellers Angie Thomas, N.K. Jemisin, G. Willow Wilson, S.A. Chakraborty, Zoraida Córdova, Tochi Onyebuchi, Ausma Zehanat Khan, Jeannette Ng, Tracy Deonn, Roseanne Brown, Usman T. Malik, and famous Uyghur writers like Tahir Hamut Izgil.
Organizations who have signed in support include World Uyghur Congress, Uyghur Human Rights Project, Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project, and Justice for All.
The joint initiative highlights the Chinese government’s mass atrocity crimes targeting ethnic Uyghurs. Documented evidence and human rights experts reveal 1.5 to 3 million Uyghur and Turkic minorities enduring crimes of mass internment, mass surveillance, mass forced sterilization, enforced family separation, slave labour, and destruction of religious, cultural and national identity. This includes the proliferation of concentration camps.
On December 9 2021, an independent UK Uyghur Tribunal issued a long awaited judgement that atrocity crimes against Uyghurs and Turkic peoples in East Turkistan constitute genocide crimes. The Parliaments of Japan, France, UK, Belgium, Czech Republic, Canada, Lithuania and the Netherlands, along with the United States State Department, consider these crimes as meeting the threshold of genocide.
Statements from co-organizers of the joint-letter expressed their concerns about WorldCon taking place in China.
Ausma Zehanat Khan, award-winning Muslim author of The Khorasan Archives series:
“As science fiction and fantasy authors, we imagine brave new worlds in our fiction. We challenge authority where grave injustices may be perpetrated without accountability or reparation. Our characters undertake impossible quests to bring down oppressive regimes for a chance at a just future. Ignoring the Chinese government’s oppression of the Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples is in total opposition to everything we as a writing community stand for. We cannot, in good conscience, celebrate the achievements of the best and brightest in our field, against a backdrop of catastrophic human suffering”.
Sarah Mughal Rana, Muslim writer and social outreach member of Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project
“To celebrate WorldCon hides the brutal realities of the current genocide conducted by the Chinese government and to participate in this convention would be equivalent to literary organizations tacitly endorsing–to all SFF writers, namely Uyghur, Turkic and Muslim writers–genocide and crimes against humanity”.
Mehmet Tohti, Executive Director of The Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project:
“Footage was released of enslaved Uyghur labourers transferred from their home to mainland China showing young Uyghur men with shorn heads, and their limbs shackled and blindfolded–these images haunt Uyghurs memories. It continues to haunt us as China–the very country perpetuating these crimes– hosts international events like the Olympics and now WorldCon, and the world celebrates alongside them as millions suffer. As a result of the mass internment campaign, I have lost more than 37 direct relatives without any clue if they are alive. We cannot hide the fact that the Chinese government is committing what Canada’s Parliament has declared to be genocide against the Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities through a world convention. The Chinese regime is holding at least one million Uyghurs in detention centres and using many others as forced labour. It is a breaking up our families, sterilizing our women and systematically destroying our culture, our heritage, and the practice of Islam.”
Joint-letter and signatories: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MbHdM8rLG7tWhJgIam5oFfHHutDI5wHQ/edi
Spokesperson: Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project
In the midst of the Ukraine invasion, threats to Taiwan, and Uyghur genocide, over 80 award-winning and bestselling writers from across the world as well as Uyghur human rights groups have condemned China’s right to host the 2023 WorldCon awards in an open letter.
The joint letter is addressed to the WorldCon committee and voters, bringing together a coalition of global science-fiction and fantasy writers to condemn the WorldCon committee for allowing Chengdu, China to bid for the 81st World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon) – a bid that they won.
The letter calls on the literary community to appeal to the committee and community in charge of allocating the honour of hosting the world’s most prestigious science-fiction fantasy awards, requesting them to relocate the 2023 event out of China. The author signatories, many of whom are New York Times bestselling authors and Hugo award winners, include members of the WorldCon community.
WorldCon community members vote on which country’s bid will win the right to host the Con. The vote was taken at DisCon III, the 2021 Worldcon in Washington DC on December 18, 2021. The four bidders were France, United States, Canada, and China. Despite the Chinese government’s ongoing genocide against Uyghur and Turkic Muslim minorities in the Uyghur region (Xinjiang), the bid was won by Chengdu. Prominent signatories include Hugo winners, nominees and bestsellers Angie Thomas, N.K. Jemisin, G. Willow Wilson, S.A. Chakraborty, Zoraida Córdova, Tochi Onyebuchi, Ausma Zehanat Khan, Jeannette Ng, Tracy Deonn, Roseanne Brown, Usman T. Malik, and famous Uyghur writers like Tahir Hamut Izgil.
Organizations who have signed in support include World Uyghur Congress, Uyghur Human Rights Project, Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project, and Justice for All.
The joint initiative highlights the Chinese government’s mass atrocity crimes targeting ethnic Uyghurs. Documented evidence and human rights experts reveal 1.5 to 3 million Uyghur and Turkic minorities enduring crimes of mass internment, mass surveillance, mass forced sterilization, enforced family separation, slave labour, and destruction of religious, cultural and national identity. This includes the proliferation of concentration camps.
On December 9 2021, an independent UK Uyghur Tribunal issued a long awaited judgement that atrocity crimes against Uyghurs and Turkic peoples in East Turkistan constitute genocide crimes. The Parliaments of Japan, France, UK, Belgium, Czech Republic, Canada, Lithuania and the Netherlands, along with the United States State Department, consider these crimes as meeting the threshold of genocide.
Statements from co-organizers of the joint-letter expressed their concerns about WorldCon taking place in China.
Ausma Zehanat Khan, award-winning Muslim author of The Khorasan Archives series:
“As science fiction and fantasy authors, we imagine brave new worlds in our fiction. We challenge authority where grave injustices may be perpetrated without accountability or reparation. Our characters undertake impossible quests to bring down oppressive regimes for a chance at a just future. Ignoring the Chinese government’s oppression of the Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples is in total opposition to everything we as a writing community stand for. We cannot, in good conscience, celebrate the achievements of the best and brightest in our field, against a backdrop of catastrophic human suffering”.
Sarah Mughal Rana, Muslim writer and social outreach member of Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project
“To celebrate WorldCon hides the brutal realities of the current genocide conducted by the Chinese government and to participate in this convention would be equivalent to literary organizations tacitly endorsing–to all SFF writers, namely Uyghur, Turkic and Muslim writers–genocide and crimes against humanity”.
Mehmet Tohti, Executive Director of The Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project:
“Footage was released of enslaved Uyghur labourers transferred from their home to mainland China showing young Uyghur men with shorn heads, and their limbs shackled and blindfolded–these images haunt Uyghurs memories. It continues to haunt us as China–the very country perpetuating these crimes– hosts international events like the Olympics and now WorldCon, and the world celebrates alongside them as millions suffer. As a result of the mass internment campaign, I have lost more than 37 direct relatives without any clue if they are alive. We cannot hide the fact that the Chinese government is committing what Canada’s Parliament has declared to be genocide against the Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities through a world convention. The Chinese regime is holding at least one million Uyghurs in detention centres and using many others as forced labour. It is a breaking up our families, sterilizing our women and systematically destroying our culture, our heritage, and the practice of Islam.”
Joint-letter and signatories: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MbHdM8rLG7tWhJgIam5oFfHHutDI5wHQ/edi
Spokesperson: Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project