Campaign for Uyghurs has received the 2025 Democracy Award for its tireless advocacy for Uyghurs and other persecuted Muslim communities under Chinese Communist Party rule. Founded in 2017, the organization has led global efforts to expose atrocities in East Turkistan (Xinjiang) through survivor testimony, advocacy, and coalition-building. Rushan Abbas, founder and executive director, accepted the award, continuing her work despite her sister Dr. Gulshan Abbas’s ongoing imprisonment in China. Presented by the National Endowment for Democracy, the award honors defenders of human rights and freedom worldwide.
Thank you, everyone, and thank you to the NED, its board, leadership, and staff, and Damon Wilson, for this tremendous honor and for your strong support for our work. Thank you for recognizing the Uyghur Muslims tonight.
This award reflects Campaign for Uyghurs’ dedication to advancing global democracy, defending natural rights, human dignity, and religious freedom, and empowering Uyghur women and youth to harness democratic systems as powerful tools to drive meaningful change.
What is happening to the Uyghurs is an active genocide, marked by mass detention, forced labor, sterilizations and abortions under coercion, forced marriages, and the criminalization of an entire faith.
But the Chinese regime’s repression does not stop at its borders. Uyghurs in the diaspora who speak out are also targeted through “kin punishment.” My sister, Dr. Gulshan Abbas, a retired physician who dedicated her life to caring for others, has now spent seven years in a Chinese prison because of my advocacy to expose the regime’s human rights abuses. She should be spending her years surrounded by her children and grandchildren, living in peace. But she has been unjustly imprisoned and denied the medical care she urgently needs in a cruel violation of international law and of our shared humanity.
One year after she was abducted, I left my career behind to fight for justice and freedom for Gulshan and for my people. I carry her photo with me wherever I go, because this is the only way I can feel close to her, the only way I can remind myself why I keep fighting, why I cannot stay silent. And none of this work for the Uyghur cause would have been possible without NED, thank you for standing with the Uyghur people in our darkest time.
In the Uyghur region, Beijing is using technology to erase a population in modern history by targeting the essence of who we are, our faith, and ethnicity.
It is orchestrating the world’s largest forced-labor scheme, tainting our food, our clothes, and infiltrating every aspect of our daily life. The surveillance system that enabled this genocide is now being exported to advance an authoritarian agenda.
Our homeland is a testing ground for a new model of authoritarianism, one that Beijing intends to spread worldwide, and so far, with alarming success. While whitewashing genocide, the regime uses economic and political power to intimidate the world and block accountability.
This is not an Uyghur issue anymore; it is China’s war on freedom and democracy, a war on women and children, and a war on humanity itself.
We stand at a turning point in history.
Our actions and choices today will determine the future of our children and grandchildren
Our faith, hope, courage, and the support of each of you are all we have left to carry on.
I accept this award on behalf of all those whose voices are silenced, including my beloved sister. Nothing in this world will slow me down. Please join me in this fight to protect humanity and the future of the free world we cherish.
Source: NED.org
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