Rushan Abbas is one of the most prominent international advocates for the rights of ethnic Uyghurs. Her memoir, “Unbroken: One Uyghur’s Fight for Freedom,” will be published on June 10.
The book explores her personal journey from her pro-democracy activism as a student in China in the 1980s, to her move to the United States in 1989, and her efforts to draw attention to the plight of Uyghurs in the face of mass internments and other grave abuses that the U.S. government says constitute genocide.
Among those she’s spoken up for are her sister, Dr. Gulshan Abbas, who was imprisoned by China in 2018. Her father, Abbas Borhan, a prominent Uyghur scholar, was forced out of his job as chairman of the Science and Technology Council of Xinjiang because of his daughter’s activism.
Rushan Abbas currently serves as executive director of a human rights group, the U.S.-based Campaign for Uyghurs. She says her book, published by Optimum Publishing International, is intended both as a personal testimony and a political call to action for governments and citizens worldwide. She spoke to RFA Uyghur journalist Shahrezad Ghayrat. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
RFA: Your book is titled ‘Unbroken.’ What does unbroken personally mean to you after all you’ve experienced and witnessed?
Rushan Abbas: The unbroken means that despite everything that my people and my family have been through — the separation, the suffering, the oppression, and the mass detention — our spirit and our dignity and our hope have not been broken. It’s a testament to resilience and to the idea that even under the most difficult conditions, Uyghur people will not be defeated, we will fight. We will fight onward with an unbroken will and courage.
RFA: You share parts of your late father’s unpublished memoir. How has his story influenced your fight for Uyghur freedom today?
Rushan Abbas My father’s story, what he has been through during the Great Cultural Revolution, is at the heart of my own fight for Uyghur freedom. And his memoir was written in the brief period of time that he was in the United States. So he lived through unimaginable oppression, and he and my mother and my grandparents and my grandpa, during the Cultural Revolution but held on to hope for future generations. He always had hope for the future generations and paved the way for the next generation to advocate for human rights. So I’m here today because of him. I am the way I am from a very young age. I have put my people and my dedication to the cause because of him. So this is not just a political story that I wrote with this book, and it’s not just my own story or not only my family’s story, but it is a story for all Uyghur people back home.
RFA: You describe Unbroken as both a personal story and a political call to action. Who do you hope hears this call the loudest: the policymakers, the public, or both?
Rushan Abbas: Both actually - the policymakers and the public. I want the public to understand the human cost of what’s happening and to stand with us. And I want policymakers to feel the urgency to act. And understand the cost of what will happen to the world if we don’t hold the authoritarian Chinese government accountable. And governments must act by applying pressure and holding the Chinese government accountable because we are talking about the future of the free world, not just what’s happening to the Uyghurs or what China is doing within their borders.
