Responding to the Uyghur Genocide: Assessing Policy and Legislative Options for the U.S.
The United States, along with Canada, the United Kingdom and the EU, have taken multiple steps in response to the ongoing genocide against the Uyghur minority in China's Xinjiang Province. In addition to sanctions, such as targeted travel bans and asset freezes, the US State Department has classified China's treatment of the Uyghurs as a genocide. Numerous US executive and legislative efforts aim to identify and ban Chinese exports produced with Uyghur forced labor.
How effective and well-coordinated is the US's developing policy and legislative response to the Uyghur genocide? What prospects does the American response have to change China's calculations regarding their Xinjiang policies? What other possible coordinated executive or legislative responses might be promising? What opportunities exist for state-civil society collaboration for a coordinated response to the Uyghur genocide?
In this webinar, we ask our distinguished guests to discuss these questions. Please join us!
Monday, September 20, 9:00AM - 11:00PM (EDT)
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 Ms. Rushan Abbas is the founder and executive director of Campaign for Uyghurs. She has been an activist since her days at university in East Turkistan, where she was a co-leaders of the pro-democracy protests. Since coming to the United States, she has been a tireless advocate for Uyghur rights. In 2017, she established the Campaign for Uyghurs. CFU was founded to advocate for the human rights and democratic freedoms of Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples oppressed by the Chinese regime. In 2018, her own sister was abducted by the Chinese regime and illegally sentenced to prison in retaliation for Ms. Abbas’s activism. Today, Ms. Abbas continues to advocate for her release and the freedom of millions of other Uyghurs, and often speaks for universities and think tanks. 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 the State Department to engage with international civic society, and meets with international government leaders. Ms. Abbas resides in Virginia.
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 Brett Hansen has been a foreign service officer at the State Department since 2013. He currently serves at U.S. Embassy Beijing where he is a political officer covering PRC government and leadership issues, as well as the situations in Xinjiang and Tibet. Brett has previously served as a political officer in Hanoi, Vietnam (2013-2015) and a consular officer in Muscat, Oman (2016-2018). Prior to joining the State Department, Brett worked at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) from 2010-2013 where he covered a wide array of development issues, including Yemen, Burma, and Timor-Leste. Brett received his Master’s degree in Middle East History from University of Utah and his Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Denison University. Brett is from Charleston, West Virginia. |
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 Dr. Ewelina U. Ochab is a human rights advocate, author and co-founder of the Coalition for Genocide Response. Dr. Ochab works on the topic of genocide, with a specific focus on the persecution of ethnic and religious minorities around the world, with main projects including the Daesh genocide in Syria and Iraq, Boko Haram atrocities in West Africa, the situation of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and of the Uyghurs in China. Dr. Ochab has written over 30 reports for the UN (including Universal Periodic Review reports) and has made oral and written submissions at the Human Rights Council, the UN Forum on Minority Issues, PACE and other international and regional fora. Dr. Ochab authored the initiative and proposal to establish the UN International Day Commemorating Victims and Survivors of Religious Persecution. The initiative has led to the establishment of the UN International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief on August 22. |
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 Sophie Richardson serves as the China Director at Human Rights Watch. She has overseen the organization’s research and advocacy on China since 2006, and has published extensively on human rights and political reform in the country and across Southeast Asia. She has testified to the Canadian Parliament, European Parliament, and the United States Senate and House of Representatives. Dr. Richardson is the author of China, Cambodia, and the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence (Columbia University Press, Dec. 2009), an in-depth examination of China's foreign policy since 1954's Geneva Conference, including rare interviews with Chinese policy makers.
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 Nury Turkel is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute. He specializes in national security, foreign policy, digital authoritarianism, and issues of forced labor and supply chain risk. Turkel’s expertise also includes global justice enforcement, human rights and religious freedom in China, and the prevention of atrocities including genocide.
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