It's a weird thing, important to understand the diversity in Uyghur groups. The NED was funding certain separatist groups, at the same time the Bush Admin was congratulating China for joining the war on terror against islamist Uyghurs, for example dozens of Uyghurs were captured by US forces in Afghanistan early in the war and put in Guantanamo, and it took years of advocacy to get them released because they got tortured there and there was little evidence many captured were actually combatants. At the same time a small number of leftist Uyghur activists exist and get basically no support from anyone.
It's a weird thing, important to understand the diversity in Uyghur groups. The NED was funding certain separatist groups, at the same time the Bush Admin was congratulating China for joining the war on terror against islamist Uyghurs, for example dozens of Uyghurs were captured by US forces in Afghanistan early in the war and put in Guantanamo, and it took years of advocacy to get them released because they got tortured there and there was little evidence many captured were actually combatants. At the same time a small number of leftist Uyghur activists exist and get basically no support from anyone.