Please note this event is for women only.
In the Uyghur culture, there is a monthly gathering of women around tea to catch up on life called, "Chai." Bring a hot drink and join us for this all-women virtual gathering to hear stories from prominent Uyghur women activists about the genocide in Xinjiang/East Turkestan.
East Turkistan is the homeland of the Turkic-speaking Uyghurs and other Central Asian peoples such as Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Tatars, and Tajiks.
Since April 2017, millions of Uyghurs have been rounded up by Chinese authorities and sent to large modern-day concentration camps. A document quoted the party secretary Chen Quango on detention centers stating the camps should “teach like a school, be managed like the military and be defended like a prison” and “must first break their lineage, break their roots, break their connections and break their origins.” These chilling words stated in an internal document, reported by the media, only touch on Beijing’s harsh policies towards the Uyghurs.
*Trigger Warning: The stories shared in this call may contain graphic detail about physical, sexual, mental, and emotional abuse.
Co-hosted by Campaign for Uyghurs and Peace Catalyst International.
REGISTER
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/virtual-chai-with-uyghur-women-stories-of-genocide-tickets-137999226401
SPEAKERS
Rushan Abbas is the Founder and Executive Director of Campaign for Uyghurs. She has been an ardent campaigner for the human rights of the Uyghur people and has worked closely with members of Congress since the 1990s. Rushan's sister, Dr. Gulshan Abbas, and their aunt disappeared in September 2018. It was recently discovered that Gulshan was sentenced to 20 years in prison by the Chinese Commuist Party for "terrorism." Her disappearance came shortly after Rushan spoke on a panel at the Hudson Institute in DC about the network of internment camps in Xingjiang.
Akida Pulat is a Uyghur activist in the U.S. whose mother, Rahile Dawut, has been detained by the Chinese government since December 12, 2017. Rahile was one of the first Uyghur women to receive her Ph.D. in Beijing Normal University. She was also a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, Indiana University, and University of California at Berkley. Akida on her mom's detainment:
"In a place that there is no freedom, no hug from family members, no music, no fresh air, and no all the good thing that you are currently enjoying right now. She disappeared on December 12, 2017. I haven’t heard from her or talked to her until now. I later knew she was being detained. I can’t let her stay in that place anymore, so I became an activist."
Jewher Ilham is a human rights activist and author of her debut book, 'Jewher Ilham: A Uyghur’s Fight to Free Her Father'. As an advocate for her father, she has testified before the U.S. Congressional-Executive Committee on China and written op-eds in the New York Times. Jewher's father, Ilham Tohti, is a Uyghur scholar who was dedicated to bridging the gap between the Uyghur people and Han Chinese. He was detained at the Beijing airport in 2018, when he and Jewher were scheduled to travel to the U.S. for a fellowship of his. Jewher found herself alone in the U.S. at the age of 18, with little English and no plan, unable to travel safely back to China.