A United Nations human rights expert is calling on the Chinese communist regime to provide information on Gulshan Abbas, a retired Uyghur medical doctor, who has been detained in China since 2018.
“Nearly six years after her detention, [Dr. Abbas’s] family members still do not have information on where she is being imprisoned, the evidence used to convict her, or most worryingly of all, her health condition,” Mary Lawlor, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on human rights defenders, said in a
statement on June 19.
“I appeal to the Chinese authorities to comply with its international human rights obligations and at least furnish [Dr. Abbas’s] family with this information.”
Dr. Abbas was detained in China in September 2018,
six days after her sister,
Rushan Abbas, spoke about Beijing’s mistreatment of Uyghurs, at the Hudson Institute, a Washington-based think tank.
In March 2019, Dr. Abbas was sentenced to 20 years in prison on terrorism-related charges, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. However, her family didn’t learn that she had been convicted of allegedly “participating in a terrorist organization” until December 2020, according to the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission.
“I am appalled by the continued imprisonment of Gulshan Abbas in apparent retaliation for her sister’s criticism of the Chinese authorities’ treatment of Uyghurs,” Ms. Lawlor said.
Ms. Lawlor also referenced a 2022
report by former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, which pointed out that the Chinese regime had been engaging in “intimidations, threat, and reprisals” against Uyghurs’ relatives living abroad who have spoken up about their experiences in China’s far-western region of Xinjiang.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has locked up more than 1 million Uyghurs in internment camps, where detainees are subjected to forced labor,
torture, political indoctrination, forced abortion, and other inhumane treatment. The U.S. government
has formally
declared the CCP’s treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang as “genocide” and “crimes against humanity.”
Ms. Rushan Abbas, co-founder and executive director of the Washington-based advocacy group Campaign for Uyghurs,
took to social media platform X on June 19 to thank Ms. Lawlor for raising awareness about her sister’s plight.
She wrote: “For nearly 6 years, our family has been left in the dark about her situation. She must be freed immediately.”
“The Chinese government did this to intimidate and silence me. I didn’t want them to have power over me, so I became a full-time activist as the voice for my people and my sister and to expose China’s crimes,” she said.
Some U.S. lawmakers earlier this month
called for Dr. Abbas’s immediate release.
“This week, Dr. Gulshan Abbas marked her 62nd birthday while enduring her sixth consecutive year of wrongful imprisonment by the #CCP,” Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.), co-chair of the bipartisan Congressional Uyghur Caucus,
wrote in an X post on June 14.
“Despite committing no crimes, Gulshan and more than one million Uyghurs, continue to suffer under the CCP’s transnational repression.
“It is imperative that she be freed and reunited with her family.”
Since the UFLPA was signed into law in December 2021, the U.S. government has added at least
68 entities to the UFLPA entity list, including three Chinese firms
added earlier this month by the Department of Homeland Security. The three firms are Dongguan Oasis Shoes; Shandong Meijia Group, a seafood company; and Xinjiang Shenhuo Coal and Electricity, an electrolytic aluminum producer.
Homeland Security’s action drew applause from Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), its co-chair.
“Today’s action sends a clear message to everyone from supermarkets to U.S. government agencies that the import of seafood and other goods connected to forced labor in China will not be tolerated,” the two lawmakers wrote in a
statement on June 11.
