[CLIP] My Sister’s Abduction: Rushan Abbas on the CCP’s Tactics to Control the Uyghur Diaspora

September 5, 2018, I participated in a panel at the Hudson Institute, one of the think tanks here in Washington, D.C., and talking about China's genocidal policies and outlining the fate of my in-laws. By that time, my husband, Abdul Hakim Idris's, entire family went missing. My parents-in-laws, and three of my sister-in-laws, their husbands, and brother-in-law and his wife, and 14 of their nieces and nephews. And I talked about those that was televised on YouTube. Six days after this, my own sister, Gulshan Abbas, a retired medical doctor, and my aunt, actually, and she's also a retired schoolteacher, and two of my closest living relatives left back home. They both got picked up in the same day from 1,400 kilometers away from each other. That's over 900 miles from two different cities. Got picked up exact the same day as a retaliation for my speaking out against the CCP. I am an American citizen. I have been living in the United States since 1989. Yet, my exercise, freedom of speech, my First Amendment right, cost my own sister's freedom. This, in a way, changed everything, right? Because you were kind of, on the one side, you felt this incredible intimidation, this backlash from the CCP against what you did. But at the same time, I think it gave you a kind of voice, or maybe a kind of strength. Tell me about what happened. I realized the Chinese government did this to intimidate me and try to silence my voice. I didn't want them to have that kind of power over me. So I quit my full-time job, and I became a full-time activist, and advocating around the world to be the voice for my people back home, voice for my sister, and expose China's crimes and genocide. One thing that Chinese government did not realize when they took my sister is the power of love, because they never understand the power of love. I love my sister, and that's her. The love I have for my sister, and the love I have for my people, and the love I have for the freedom and democracy, that's actually refueling me. I gain strength from that love and fight onwards every day. What do you say to people who would say, Hey, you're endangering them, your relatives, by doing this? Because I've certainly heard that in different contexts. I do feel guilty when I think about my sister being in jail. But at the same time, if I only think about myself or my family only, there's something that is extremely important for all of us. That is the freedom and the democracy in the world. The freedom and democracy, I left my family and my friends and my hometown, and I came to the United States for, and that's being at stake right now. It's not just about my sister, my family, or my in-laws, or the Uyghur and the other people in East Turkestan. It's not just that their future is being at stake. The future of the entire world, the future of the free world that we know, and most of us take for granted, that's being endangered. The Chinese government is being threatened for that freedom and democracy. Many of the people here or the audiences who are listening to us, their parents, their grandparents, worked so hard to establish and last 70-some years. And that's what we are losing by this transnational repression, by the Chinese government's infiltration. When you look at it, we see many celebrities and many companies, CEOs, talk show hosts, and Disney and Hollywood, NBA stars, being so vocal against any kind of social injustice. Rightfully, they should. But where are they when the Chinese government is conducting an active genocide against the Uyghur people? When Uyghur women are facing forced sterilization, forced abortions, about one million Uyghur children are taken away from their families. Uyghur women are forced to marry Han Chinese men, which is sponsored by the government. Where are the feminists? Where are the people who are supposed to defend children's rights? Well, when the perpetrator of those crimes has the money and the power, they all decide to be silent and look away. But one thing that they don't realize is they're not just giving away their freedom of speech. Those politicians or those celebrities or those important people out there, world leaders, they're not just giving up their freedom of expression or freedom of speech. They are giving up the future of the free world. They are giving up the sovereignty of their countries if they are the leaders of some countries that's swaying into the totalitarian regimes like China. If we don't take action and hold China accountable or stop the Chinese government now, it will be their children and grandchildren who will pay the consequences of an illiberal world.