Catalan committee backs Uyghur motion and Beijing objects, Hotan signs 11 textile deals, Thai group renews appeal on two men

Közet’s daily roundup of news on Uyghurs, their homeland, and the world around them. Tuesday, November 3, 2026.

TOP LINE

Catalan parliament committee approves Uyghur motion; China’s embassy calls it “flagrant interference.” The EU and Foreign Action Committee of the Parliament of Catalonia approved a motion by the Junts party denouncing what it calls “systematic human rights violations” against Uyghurs, exterior.cat, a Catalan news portal owned by the Comunicació21 group, reported Friday. The motion, presented by Junts deputy Francesc de Dalmases, calls for the release of arbitrarily detained people, urges the Catalan government to press for “proportionate diplomatic and economic measures” in European institutions, asks it to alert Catalan companies about supply chains and proposes reception for Uyghurs arriving in Catalonia. China’s embassy in Spain said Saturday that “a few local parties” on the committee had “insisted on pushing through the so-called proposed resolution on Xinjiang,” called it “riddled with unfounded claims and fallacious arguments” and “flagrant interference in China’s internal affairs,” and urged “those concerned in Catalonia to rectify their errors.” Neither the Catalan report nor the embassy statement gives the date of the vote or the tally. (exterior.cat, October 30; Chinese Embassy in Spain, October 31)

HOMELAND

Hotan signs 11 textile projects and launches a regional brand. Eleven investment projects in spinning and high-end printing and dyeing were signed at Hotan (Hetian) prefecture’s textile and apparel conference on Tuesday, China News Service, a state news agency, reported. The conference launched a regional public brand, “Hotan Weaving” (和田织造), and the prefecture and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) side signed a textile cooperation memorandum with the “aid-Xinjiang” offices of Beijing, Tianjin, Anhui and Henan; the XPCC’s 14th Division (Kunyu City) co-organized the event. Prefecture party secretary Wang Lujun urged entrepreneurs to “put down roots in Hotan,” and executive deputy commissioner Zhang Hui described a chain running “cotton, spinning, weaving, dyeing, garments, brands, exports,” the agency reported. (China News Service, November 3)

DIASPORA

Uyghur groups to host Berlin roundtable on transnational repression. The World Uyghur Congress, an advocacy group, will host a roundtable in Berlin on November 12 titled “Uyghur Rights Beyond China’s Borders: Transnational Repression in the Shadow of the Ethnic Unity Law,” the Coalition Against Transnational Repression in Germany, of which WUC is a member, said in an October 27 announcement. The Berlin Freedom Week program lists the event at the Taipei Representative Office from 4 to 6 p.m., with a Uyghur activist, a China specialist on Article 63 of the law, members of the German and European parliaments and a moderator from the Society for Threatened Peoples, without naming them. (Coalition Against Transnational Repression in Germany, October 27; Berlin Freedom Week)

INTERNATIONAL

Thai advocacy group renews appeal against returning two Uyghur men. The Manushya Foundation, a Thai advocacy group, said Tuesday that two Uyghur men moved from prison to Bangkok’s Suan Phlu immigration detention center on October 21 after a royal pardon face “a real risk of torture and enforced disappearance” if returned to China. It called on the Thai government to halt any return of the two and three other Uyghur men still held, to give lawyers, the National Human Rights Commission and UNHCR access to them, and to arrange third-country resettlement. The alert cites Közet’s October 31 report that the men told their lawyers they do not consent to return and that counsel has not been allowed to see them since the transfer. Thailand’s record comes before the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review in Geneva on November 9. (Manushya Foundation, November 3; Közet, October 31; UPR Working Group timetable)

Xinjiang government co-hosts local-government session at Almaty forum. The regional government of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region co-organized a “Local Government Cooperation” subforum at the second Tengri Tagh (Tianshan) Forum for Central Asia Economic Cooperation in Almaty on November 2 and 3, according to the program of the CAREC Institute, which co-hosted the forum with Kazakhstan’s Ministry of National Economy. The forum drew about 300 participants, and China’s finance minister, Lan Fo’an, gave an opening address, the Finance Ministry said in a statement carried by The Paper, a Shanghai state-owned outlet. The program lists ecology-based agriculture and the role of local governments among the session topics. (CAREC Institute program; Ministry of Finance via The Paper, November 2)

MEDIA WATCH

Organized press tour’s Urumqi leg pairs a dairy line with a “harmonious” lane. On the November 2 Urumqi stop of the Central Propaganda Department’s “Forging a Shared Community, One Chinese Family” reporting tour, Xinjiang Daily, the regional party committee’s newspaper, took readers to the Urumqi International Land Port, a Tianrun Dairy production line, the Guyuan Lane community in Tianshan district and the International Grand Bazaar pedestrian street. The newspaper quoted a yogurt-line worker saying she earns “8,000 to 9,000 yuan a month” and moved “from a single-story house to an apartment,” and described the lane, which it says houses 1,332 households of 14 ethnic groups, as a model of what the tour calls “interaction, exchange and integration.” (Xinjiang Daily via China News Service, November 3)

ON THE RADAR

November 6 to 8, Urumqi: The 20th Xinjiang Winter Tourism Trade Expo and “Hot Snow Festival” at the Xinjiang International Convention and Exhibition Center. (Xinjiang Department of Culture and Tourism, November 3)

Through November 7: Coverage from the Central Propaganda Department’s organized reporting tour of the region. (Xinhua, November 1)

November 9, Geneva, 2:30 to 6 p.m.: Thailand’s Universal Periodic Review at the UN Human Rights Council. (UPR Working Group 53rd session timetable)

November 12, Berlin, 4 to 6 p.m.: World Uyghur Congress roundtable on transnational repression at the Taipei Representative Office. (Berlin Freedom Week; Coalition Against Transnational Repression in Germany, October 27)

November 24, Yarkent (Shache), 11 a.m. Beijing time: Bids close on the county party propaganda department’s 3.61 million yuan tender for “new era civilization practice” station equipment. (China Government Procurement Network, October 31)

Radar is compiled by Közet’s editors from Közet’s own reporting, public documents and other outlets’ work, attributed in each item. Where Közet has read the underlying record, the item says so; where it could not verify a claim, the item says that too. Statements by governments and companies are reported as statements, not facts. Uyghur place names appear first, with the official Chinese name in parentheses. Published weekdays at 12:00 p.m. Eastern. Editorial standards and corrections: kozet.org/editorial-standards.

Sources

Junts insta al Govern que condemni la persecució del poble uigur a la Xina (exterior.cat, October 30) https://exterior.cat/noticies/junts-insta-al-govern-que-condemni-la-persecucio-del-poble-uigur-a-la-xina/
Declaración del Portavoz de la Embajada de China en España (Chinese Embassy in Spain, October 31) https://es.china-embassy.gov.cn/esp/ggwj/202610/t20261031_12050628.htm
Xinjiang Hotan prefecture textile and apparel high-quality development conference held (China News Service, November 3) https://www.chinanews.com.cn/cj/2026/11-03/10725494.shtml
WUC roundtable announcement (Coalition Against Transnational Repression in Germany, October 27) https://stop-transnational-repression.de/2026/10/27/the-world-uyghur-congress-a-member-of-the-coalition-against-transnational-repression-in-germany-will-host-in-cooperation-with-partner-organizations-a-roundtable-discussion-entitled-uyghur/
Uyghur Rights Beyond China’s Borders (Berlin Freedom Week, November 12 program) https://berlin-freedom-week.com/en/event/uyghur-rights-beyond-chinas-borders-transnational-repression-shadow-ethnic-unity-law
Human rights alert: Will Thailand send two Uyghur men back to China (Manushya Foundation, November 3) https://www.manushyafoundation.org/post/human-rights-alert-will-thailand-send-two-uyghur-men-back-to-china-and-deepen-its-complicity-i
Thai rights groups urge government not to return two pardoned Uyghur men to China (Közet, October 31) https://kozet.org/thai-rights-groups-uyghur-men-return-china/
UPR Working Group 53rd session timetable (UPR Info) https://upr-info.org/sites/default/files/general-document/2025-12/timetable_upr_53.pdf
Second Tengri Tagh (Tianshan) Forum for Central Asia Economic Cooperation (CAREC Institute) https://carecinstitute.org/?p=7314&post_type=event
Lan Fo’an attends the opening of the 2026 Tengri Tagh (Tianshan) Forum (Ministry of Finance via The Paper, November 2) https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_34390918
A channel linking inside and outside, a workshop raising incomes, a courtyard, a lane (Xinjiang Daily via China News Service, November 3) https://www.chinanews.com.cn/txy/2026/11-03/10725150.shtml
20th Xinjiang Winter Tourism Trade Expo and 2026 Hot Snow Festival announcement (Xinjiang Department of Culture and Tourism via Sina Weibo, November 3) https://www.sina.cn/weibo/detail/5361256036831102.html
2026 “Forging a Shared Community” publicity campaign launches in Xinjiang (Xinhua, November 1) https://www1.xinhuanet.com/politics/20261101/301d62e1e8004111b1d5e58ff8d93d35/c.html
Yarkent cultural project equipment tender notice (China Government Procurement Network, October 31) https://www.ccgp.gov.cn/cggg/dfgg/gkzb/202610/t20261031_27598034.htm