16 years ago, in Shaoguan City of the Southern Guangdong province, a Uyghur man was wrongfully accused of raping a Han Chinese woman at a factory. The accusation ignited a brawl between Han Chinese and Uyghur factory workers, leading to the death of two Uyghur men.

Their deaths were ignored by police in Shaoguan City, almost as if the Uyghur lives were expendable in the eyes of Chinese authorities. But their deaths were not ignored by their people. In Urumqi, people took to the streets to protest authorities’ lack of accountability in the incident. And their protests, like most of the protests in China, were met with a bloody crackdown.

In this episode, Zumretay Arkin, Vice President of the World Uyghur Congress, recounts what happened in the summer of 2009, when she witnessed firsthand the unjust treatment her people have endured for decades, and continue to suffer.