“As the world found out about the Chinese government’s labor and education camps for Uyghurs—where women are forcibly sterilized, where Uyghur children are removed from their homes and taken to state-run schools to be stripped of their culture, where our religion is prohibited—I felt called to speak about these issues.”
News began to surface about the Chinese government’s treatment of Uyghurs. In his 2018 statement, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein wrote: “My Office continues to receive urgent appeals regarding arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, ill-treatment and discrimination, emanating from human rights defenders, lawyers, legislators, booksellers, and members of communities such as Tibetans and Uyghurs.”
As a Uyghur, Abdull felt compelled to channel his interest in activism toward learning more about Uyghur issues. He sought to raise awareness of what was happening to Uyghurs in China, including to his own family members still in the region.
