Flag of the Uyghur independence movement
The flag of the Uyghur independence movement was one of the flags of the first "Republic of East Turkestan " for almost a year . Today it is used by organizations in exile as the “flag of the Uighur independence movement”. Separatists continue to refer to them as the “national flag of East Turkestan”.
see also flags of the Uighurs
Description and meaning
The model for the construction is the Turkish flag . Blue symbolizes the community of the Turkic peoples , to which the Uighurs also belong. Crescent and star stand for Islam .
History and status
The flag was used from 1933 to 1934 as one of several flags of the first " Islamic Republic of East Turkestan " ("Republic of Uyguristan"). The republic with its center in Kashgar was founded in parts of what was then Xinjiang Province of the Republic of China as a result of a separatist movement.
A second " Republic of East Turkestan ", which was founded in Gulja on November 12, 1944 and whose area roughly corresponds to that of today's Kazakh Autonomous District Ili , carried a similar flag among others. On it, the “opening” of the crescent points to the top left and the star hovers accordingly to the top left. This second republic, which was supported by the Soviet Union and was revolutionary and pro-communist, showed the flag initially on a light blue, later often on a red background. It dissolved on October 1, 1949 and became - like all other areas of Xinjiang - part of the newly founded People's Republic of China . In September 1955, the former Xinjiang Province was finally converted into the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region .
The Chinese government is suppressing the separatist currents in Xinjiang. Showing the flag is therefore prohibited in all of China. However, the flag of the state-owned China Xinjiang Airlines was based on it and showed a flying swan and a (reversed) crescent on a blue background until it was incorporated into China Southern Airlines in 2003.