On May 3rd, 2021, Gene Bunin, wrote a post criticizing the Uyghur diaspora.

Hereby writing to announce that Uyghur Pulse is over, so please don't send videos anymore. If anyone wants to continue this project and to inherit the Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube channels, please contact me (but only if you plan to do it diligently and to do a good job). While I could go on a long rant about this decision, it would inevitably offend an incredible number of people and so I won't. Suffice to say that I no longer want to scream into a vacuum, by trying to help a diaspora group that is more busy attacking their own, self-victimizing, and spreading disinformation than actually doing concrete and useful work. I have hated the Uyghur Pulse for at least 1.5 years now, but have always viewed it as essential and continued to force myself to do it, even though that meant dedicating 2-3 days of my month and constantly watching how passive the Uyghur diaspora (and non-Uyghurs also) remained, despite increasing arguments in favor of going public and how this could save lives.

Specifically, I lost my patience for good following the reactions to a certain SupChina piece about a certain activist a couple of weeks ago. The Uyghur activist, a friend who created numerous initiatives, continued his work even after his parents were released, and ended up in a hospital last year, was mercilessly torn apart by fellow Uyghurs, who ganged up on him in spite of everything he sacrificed and did. For me, this was the red line - consequently, I will no longer kill myself to work with this diaspora.

More generally, I also need to step away from the community for an indefinite (possibly infinite) period of time, as my misanthropy seems to have reached an all-time high. The ideal would be to go live on an island somewhere and cut my internet connection, but since the crisis in XJ isn't over I cannot really do that.

As a result, I will:

1. be going off Facebook and Messenger (if anyone comes across Facebook-only testimonies, please send the link to info@shahit.biz as we will miss these otherwise);
2. not be giving media commentary (journalists with questions can still write to info@shahit.biz and someone will help you);
3. not be writing any articles;
4. not be attending any conferences or testifying at any tribunals;
5. be minimizing my interactions with the Uyghur diaspora.

In short, I will be disappearing. However, as promised in late 2018, I will continue to devote all of my waking time to the crisis until it ends (or I end) - i.e., I will continue working on shahit around the clock, albeit anonymously, so progress there should be quite good. (Basically turning into a basement computer nerd.)

That is all. Disconnecting now.