India, Nov. 14 -- When Uyghur demonstrators gathered across European capitals on 12 November this year, the most visible object was neither a placard nor a slogan. It was a piece of cloth: light blue, carrying a white crescent and star, known to Uyghurs as the Kok Bayraq. Beijing outlaws it domestically, insisting it represents separatism. Yet beyond China's borders, the same image has grown into one of the most persistent expressions of Uyghur endurance in the face of repression in Xinjiang.

Its journey from an outlawed emblem inside China to a global protest fixture mirrors the broader trajectory of the Uyghur cause itself: a struggle that Beijing has tried to contain within the borders of Xinjiang, but which now circulates across parl...