ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- A group in Kazakhstan involved in defending the rights of ethnic Kazakhs in China's northwestern region of Xinjiang has announced it will create a political party in the Central Asian state.
Leaders and activists of the group Naghyz Atazhurt (Real Fatherland) announced the move at a press conference in Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty, on May 12.
"Our goal is to contribute to the process of the democratic political system while taking into account our people's traditions, language, national characteristics," the group's leader, Bekzat Maqsutuly, said.
In a sign of the party's platform, Maqsutuly accused the authorities of doing nothing to assist ethnic Kazakhs in Xinjiang who want to move to Kazakhstan.
He said that anti-government protests in early January, where more than 200 people died as security forces opened fire on unarmed demonstrators, "showed that the current authorities do not care about the fate of Kazakh citizens."
"We understood that the problems faced by ethnic Kazakhs abroad cannot be resolved unless real legal institutions, rule of law and justice, are established in Kazakhstan," Maqsutuly said.
Naghyz Atazhurt, formerly known as Atazhurt Eriktileri (Volunteers of the Fatherland), has campaigned for the release of ethnic Kazakhs held in so-called re-education camps in Xinjiang.
The United Nations has said an estimated 1 million ethnic Uyghurs and other mostly Turkic-speaking Muslim indigenous people of Xinjiang, including Kazakhs, were being held in what it described as "counterextremism centers" in Xinjian.
The UN also said millions more had been forced into internment camps.
China says that the facilities are "centers for vocational education and training."