IS IT POSSIBLE TO TALK ABOUT PUBLIC HEALTH IN EAST TURKESTAN, WHERE HUMAN RIGHTS ARE VIOLATED?

East Turkestan, which has been subject to Chinese invasions for centuries and came under the control of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, has been subject to a series of unprecedented human rights violations since then. East Turkestan people are being forced to migrate by the Chinese government, and those who migrate are being tracked down and pressured and blackmailed into returning to mandatory detention camps. It has been documented that Muslim Turks in particular have been subjected to mass and arbitrary detention and arrest in camps called “re-education” since 2014. It is known that Uyghurs are forced to work in physically unbearable jobs without any pay in these camps, are deprived of their basic needs, are kept in unventilated cells and in unhealthy conditions, and are subjected to severe inhuman torture and rape. One of the human rights violations of the Chinese government against East Turkestan people is the so-called “paired relatives” policy. In addition, the fundamental rights of women are being violated, and their freedom of belief, thought and sexuality are being interfered with through the policies of forced abortion and birth control that violate human dignity implemented against women in East Turkestan. As if all this were not enough, the nuclear tests carried out by China in East Turkestan are causing widespread environmental and health problems. In this review, the effects of China's long-standing human rights violations on the public health of East Turkestan are discussed with the relevant literature.