The East Turkestan Liberation Organization (Turkish: Doğu Türkistan Kurtuluş Örgütü; Uyghur: شارقىي تۇركەستان ئازاتلىق تەشكىلاتى; ULY: Sharqiy Turkestan Azatliq Teshkilati; ETLO) is a secessionist Uyghur organization that advocates an independent state called "East Turkestan" in the Western Chinese territory known as Xinjiang. The organization was established in Turkey in the late 1990s to fight against the government in Xinjiang, a territory in which no ethnicity forms a majority, but is inhabited in order of most populous to least by Uyghur, Han Chinese, Kazakh and other Turkic communities. Xinjiang or East Turkestan has a population of 18 million, eight million of which are Turkic-speaking Muslim Uighurs. As a result of Chinese economic development policies, the demography of the region has altered - ethnic Han Chinese population of the region has risen to 40% or 7.5 million people of the total population, as opposed to 6% in 1949. Kazakhs, the third largest group, constitute 1.2 million. The Chinese government characterizes the East Turkestan Liberation Organization as a terrorist organization. ETLO is a designated terrorist organization by the governments of China, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.
Read more about East Turkestan Liberation Organization: History, Shanghai Cooperation Organization
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