Dolkun Isa, the head of the so-called World Uyghur Congress (WUC), was accused of sexually harassing three female university students, according to media reports.

One of the victims is identified as Esma Gun, a 22-year-old Turkish-Belgian woman studying in an Istanbul-based university. She provided a screenshot to Washington-based publication NOTUS as evidence of Isa's misdemeanors in 2021. Previously, two other Uygur women had spoken in separate interviews with NOTUS about his "unprofessional sexual advances" towards them. The two women asked to speak anonymously because they were "worried about retaliation."

Isa admitted his illegal conduct on X, formerly Twitter, on May 12, but tried to shirk responsibility by referring his crime against women as "allegations" and "serious error," claiming he only sent messages that caused "discomfort."

A day later, the so-called WUC issued a statement on its official website, saying it "acknowledges and welcomes" its president's "forthright" apology "offered without reservation," showing no sign of regret.

The WUC is recognized by the Chinese government as a separatist and extremist organization that has been spreading religious extremism and instigating terrorism on China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. As the organization's head, Isa is suspected of organizing and committing a series of violent terrorist activities and serious crimes in China.

'Second CIA'

Claimed to be an "international organization," the WUC is funded by several Western foundations, including the U.S.-based National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

NED is nominally a bipartisan and non-profit institution that provides support for democracy abroad, but actually relies on continuous financial support from the White House and the U.S. Congress, and takes orders from the U.S. government.

The organization was founded in 1983 when the U.S. government was in urgent need to establish a "public-private mechanism" to "promote democracy."

As early as in 1991, NED founder Alan Weinstein put it bluntly in an interview with the Washington Post that a lot of what they were doing was what the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had done 25 years ago. NED was therefore known globally as the "second CIA."

Through the provision of funding, it has directed NGOs around the world to export American values, conduct subversion, infiltration and sabotage, and incite "democratic movements" in target countries and regions, such as providing financial supports to groups for color revolutions during the Arab Spring and training anti-governmental forces in countries like Egypt and Belarus.

The institution is the main source of funding for various "Xinjiang independence" organizations. It claims to have provided grants worth $8.76 million to various "Uyghur organizations" between 2004 and 2020. 

Then NED President Carl Gershman openly claimed that to solve the problems in Xinjiang, a color revolution must happen in China and that regime change could turn the country into a federal republic. 

Speaking at NED's Democracy Award event in June 2019, Gershman openly supported the idea of "East Turkestan" to embolden "Xinjiang independence" forces. He also called for global attention to so-called human rights issues in Xinjiang and sought to launch an international alliance dedicated to this matter and to sanction China.

Besides Xinjiang, the institution has also funded activities by separatist groups seeking independence of China's Xizang Autonomous Region, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and Taiwan region.

Isa had won the 2019 Democracy Award from the NED. He also received a human rights award from the far-right Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in 2016, another "non-profit" institution established by the U.S. government. 

(Cover: A view of the Xinjiang International Grand Bazaar in Urumqi, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. /CFP)