Rushan Abbas

Rushan Abbas (Uyghur: روشەن ئابباس; Chinese: 茹仙·阿巴斯; born June 14, 1967) is a Uyghur American activist and advocate from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China.

She is the founder and executive director of the nonprofit Campaign for Uyghurs.

Born in Ürümqi in 1967, Abbas attended the Experiential High School (Ürümqi Number 17th High school) and graduated in 1984.

It is not clear when she went to primary school.

Since the late 1980s, Abbas has been a campaigner for the human rights of Uyghur people around the world.

She then continued her studies and attended Xinjiang University from 1984 until 1988 and majored in Biology.

because during the 70 and 80s (until 1985), the elementary, middle, and high schools were all together 10 years in Ürümqi; it seems she started primary school when she was 7 in 1974, in order to graduate in 1984.

During her time at university, Abbas was one of the co-organizers of the pro-democracy rallies and demonstrations in 1985 and 1988, which were done to protest China’s policies in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

During Abbas' time in the United States, she became a U.S. citizen and remained within the Uyghur American community, continuing her advocacy work which she has been actively doing since 1985.

Since her move to the U.S., she has been a vocal activist and advocates for the human rights of Uyghurs.

According to Abbas, China punished her father, Abbas Borhan, a Uyghur scholar, academic writer and public figure, for this, retiring him at 59 and removing him as chairman of the Science and Technology Council of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region

In 1988, she began her activism by participating in the Uyghur Student Protests.

One of the multiple student movements in that decade, the protests generally resisted discriminatory education policies, birth control policies, the effects of nuclear testing in the Lop Nur region, a lack of genuine autonomy and representation in government and employment opportunities.

In 1989, she came to the United States and attended Washington State University where she pursued studies in plant pathology.

According to Abbas, all 22 men had previously escaped the 1997 Ghulja Incident and fled to Pakistan and Afghanistan, then the only places in the area which offered protection and did not require a visa; after September 11, when the U.S. military raided Afghanistan, while trying to escape the war zone they were caught by some Pakistani bounty hunters who sold them for $5,000 each to the U.S. authorities as foreign fighters.

By 1998, Radio Free Asia had launched a Uyghur Service where Abbas became the first Uyghur reporter broadcasting on Xinjiang.

Shortly after the September 11 attacks, Abbas worked as a contractor for the U.S. military interpreting interrogations of Uyghur detainees at Guantanamo Bay through 2002.

Abbas states she was asked to serve as a translator to these Uyghurs in early 2002 and accepted a nine-month assignment, returning in 2003 for an additional two months.

Since 2005, she has worked to help settle Uyghurs who were detained in Guantanamo Bay.

In 2006, she returned to aid defense attorneys in their ongoing efforts to secure a declaration of innocence for the Uyghurs being held there.

Following their release, Abbas assisted the US Department of Justice and State Department with the resettlement efforts in Albania, Sweden, Bermuda, Palau, Switzerland, El Salvador, and Slovenia.

Her activism continued in the United States, where she participated in protests against the Olympic relay in 2008 in San Francisco.

She frequently briefs and advises on policy and legislative response, including support for the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, last year's Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, and greater transparency for the Sister Cities program with links to China.

She works frequently with international Human Rights Organizations, civic societies and meets with international government leaders and politicians.

A few months after the September 11 attacks, the U.S. had transferred a group of 22 Uyghur men to the Guantanamo Bay detention center as part of the ongoing War on Terror.

Five were captured following a battle in Northern Afghanistan, and 17 were seized by police in Pakistan.

In 2017, Abbas founded Campaign for Uyghurs.

The non-profit is based in Washington, DC, and is used to organize internationally for the rights of Uyghur people.

Abbas became one of the most prominent Uyghur voices in international activism following her sister's detainment by the Chinese government in 2018.

Abbas introduced and led the "One Voice One Step" Uyghur Women's movement; an organized demonstration that took place on March 15, 2018, in 14 countries and 18 cities on the same day to protest China's detention of millions of Uyghurs in concentration camps.

The protests were held in the United States, Germany, Belgium, Norway, Turkey, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Australia, Canada, France, Finland, and Japan.

The demonstrations largely were held to demand that the international community take action against reports of concentration camps in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

On September 5, 2018, Rushan Abbas participated on a panel discussion titled "China's 'War on Terrorism' and the Xinjiang Emergency" hosted by the Hudson Institute.

Abbas spoke about the ongoing Uyghur Genocide, and described the camps being used to detain Uyghurs in China.

Six days later, one of Abbas's sisters and an aunt disappeared from their homes in northwest China, and Abbas believes both were both detained by the Chinese government as retaliation for her speech.

Abbas has been advocating for Uyghur people's rights, regularly appearing in the media, delivering public remarks in universities and forums, and creating international coalitions to draw attention to the Uyghur cause.

Since her disappearance, the Chinese Government has confirmed that her sister, Dr. Gulshan Abbas, is being held in a prison inside China on alleged terror charges.

Beyond this confirmation, few details have been made publicly available.

She testified in 2019 before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in regard to the emergence of concentration camps in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and the threat of Chinese power in the Eastern Pacific.

She has also testified before the House of Representatives on international religious persecution, forced labor, and human rights abuses as they relate to Uyghurs.