The Uyghurs, a mostly Muslim ethnic minority concentrated in the Xinjiang region along China’s western border, have faced discrimination, detention, and genocide at the hands of the Chinese Communist authorities. And yet most countries-including the U.S.-have largely remained silent. Tom Gjelten, a former NPR international and domestic affairs correspondent and Robert Siegel, Moment special literary contributor and former senior host of NPR’s All Things Considered, explore why, and how the situation recalls inaction in the face of Nazi persecution of Jews during the Holocaust, how discrimination against the Uyghurs became Chinese policy, and what can be done. Gjelten recently wrote about the Uyghurs as part of Moment‘s Daniel Pearl Investigative Journalism Initiative, which examines prejudice and discrimination worldwide.

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