Nury Turkel

Nury A. Turkel[6] (Uyghur: نۇرى تۈركەل‎‎ , born 1970) is an Uyghur American attorney, public official and human rights advocate from Washington, D.C.. He was born in Xinjiang, which is also known as East Turkestan. After his undergraduate graduation in 1995, he moved to the United States. He was president of the Uyghur American Association[7] and is currently serving as the Chairman of the Board for the Uyghur Human Rights Project which is Washington, D.C. based human rights project for Uighur human rights research and documentation.[8][9][10] Turkel has published commentaries in The Wall Street Journal, The Independent, and Foreign Policy as well as appearing on major media outlets including CNN, BBC, Fox News, Al Jazeera, Australian ABC, Sky News, France 24 and TRT World.[3][11][12][5] In 2020, Turkel was appointed a commissioner on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.[1][2][4][11][13][14][15][16] Turkel is the first U.S.-educated Uyghur lawyer.[1][17]

Nury A. Turkel
نۇرى تۈركەل
Member of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom
Assumed office
May 26, 2020[1][2]
President of the Uyghur American Association
In office
2004–2006
Personal details
Born (1970-09-02) 2 September 1970
Kashgar, Xinjiang (East Turkestan)[3][4], China
NationalityUnited States
ResidenceWashington, D.C.[5]
Alma materNorthwest A&F University[3]
American University
OccupationLawyer,[1][5]
public official, human rights advocate
Known forFirst U.S.-educated Uyghur laywer[1]
Former President of the Uyghur American Association
Chairman of the Board for the
Uyghur Human Rights Project
EthnicityUyghur

Early life

Nury Turkel was born 1970 in a detention center[1][5][18][19] in Kashgar[3] (Kashi) during the Cultural Revolution.[11] Turkel's grandfather had been associated with Uyghur nationalists and his mother was interned when she was six months pregnant. Turkel and his mother lived in the detention center for the first four months of his life.[18] Turkel's father was a professor and his mother was a successful businesswoman.[1][18] He completed his primary and middle school in his homeland. In 1991 he was admitted by Northwest A&F University in Shaanxi Province, China.[3] In 1995, Turkel received his Bachelor’s degree and went to the United States for his higher education and never returned to China.[18][19] He has a Master of Arts in International Relations and a Juris Doctorate degree from American University.[3][11]

Career
US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo meets with Commissioner Turkel and Chinese dissidents (July 2020)

On March 10, 2003, Turkel made a statement to the Congressional-Executive Commission on China on the worsening human rights situation in East Turkestan (Xinjiang) in the wake of the September 11 attacks.[20]

In 2003, Turkel co-founded the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) and has served as Chairman of the Board for the organization.[4][11][16]

Between 2004 and 2006, Turkel served as President of the Uyghur American Association.[4][3][21] He organised and lead the campaign to obtain the release of Rebiya Kadeer, in March 2005.[11]

In May 2009, he defended a group of seventeen Uyghurs who were held in Guantánamo Bay since 2002.[22] He wrote that,

"Uyghurs are the Tibetans you haven't heard about. Ethnic Turkic people from the Chinese Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Uyghurs have long faced discrimination and persecution as a minority -- a fact recognized repeatedly by the U.S. Congress and State Department, which has noted China's insidious strategy of using the U.S. war on terror as pretext to oppress independent religious leaders and peaceful political dissenters. Uyghurs' struggle for self-rule is one against dictatorship and communism, not one to establish a sharia state through violence (as Gingrich claims, in a curious echo of Chinese government propaganda).{...}The Uyghurs are not a threat to U.S. communities. Just look at the five Uyghur companions who were released from Guantánamo in 2006 and have lived peaceably and productively in Europe for three years now."[23][24]

In July 2009, after July 2009 Ürümqi riots, he condemned the Chinese brutal oppression of Uyghurs in Urumqi, he said that, "the Uyghurs literally lost anything that they had, even their native language and their own cultural heritage that they had been proudly adhering to. The economic pressure, social pressure, political pressure made the Uyghurs feel they had been suffocated by the communist regime.’’[25][26][27]

In April 2012, Turkel praised Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for showing support and sympathy for the Uighur people surrounding his trip to China in a way that was seen as rare among foreign leaders.[28][29]

In early 2017, Turkel had considered visiting his hometown of Kashgar, but was advised by the US government not to travel.[18]

On August 10, 2018, the United Nations said that it has credible reports that China is holding a million Uighurs in secret camps.[30] After that, on August 22, 2018, the BBC interviewed Turkel regarding the reeducation camps issue in Xinjiang. He told BBC it was true that one million or more Uighurs are being held in so called internment camps in his homeland and said regarding the situation,

"I am afraid of mass murder because we don't know, other than a few individuals have managed to leave the camps. People are not leaving. Where have those million people gone? What are they being charged of? It's basically a no-rights-zone as the UN official perfectly pointed out. You have no access to a lawyer, you have no access to judicial process, there is no access to family members, there is no access to proper medical care- that's why we've seen people leaving as a dead person from the camps. So I am worried. Also, there's an important part of my worries: the Chinese government has been building crematoriums. They are hiring people to work on these facilities. Why are they building all of the sudden in such places?"[31]

Turkel successfully represented and provided legal assistance for Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress, restoring Isa's travel privileges to the United States and removing Isa's name from Interpol’s Red Notice list.[11]

In May 2020, Nury Turkel was appointed a commissioner on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom[11][13][14][15] by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi who said of Turkel, "I am confident that he will continue to be a powerful voice for the Uyghur people and for the cause of justice around the world."[32] Later that summer, Turkel thanked President Trump for signing the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act and further wrote that, "It's a great day for America and the Uighur people".[33][34]

Commissioner Turkel supported a July 2020 Commerce Department announcement sanctioning eleven Chinese companies involved in alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang commenting that the decision, "will help ensure that the fruits of American innovation and industry are not inadvertently fueling outrageous religious freedom and labor violations."[35] Turkel commented on July 2020 sanctions of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps saying that they were a significant step and that for years Uyghur human rights advocates had been calling for sanctioning the organization.[36][37] In an August 2020 interview, Turkel commented regarding the camps that:

This is one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. The State Department rightly said this is the largest incarceration of any ethnic minority since the Holocaust[19]

Personal life

Nury Turkel is a Muslim[18][38], is married to a Turkish-American interior designer and has a son.[18]

Turkel is proficient in several languages, including Uyghur (mother tongue), English, Turkish and Mandarin Chinese.[12][39]

See also

References
  1. "USCIRF Welcomes Appointment by Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Nury Turkel to U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom". United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. 26 May 2020. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  2. "Justice For All Welcomes The Appointment Of Nury Turkel To USCIRF".
  3. "Nury Turkel". Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy. Retrieved 21 July 2020.
  4. Elana Schor (6 June 2020). "Q&A: Nury Turkel on Uighurs and new religious freedom post". Associated Press. Retrieved 21 July 2020.
  5. "Survivors of Religious Persecution at the 74th Session of the UN General Assembly". State Department. 22 September 2019. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  6. "Correction". New York Times. 16 September 2006. Retrieved 21 July 2020.
  7. "Nury Turkel: A Turkish Primer on Engaging Beijing". www.uhrp.org. Retrieved 14 September 2012.
  8. "Attorney Nury Turkel". www.chinafile.com. Retrieved 3 May 2017.
  9. "The Uyghur Crisis in China: Adversity, Advocacy, Activism". UCLA Asia Pacific Center. 16 November 2019. Retrieved 7 May 2020.
  10. "Remarks at the 5th Biannual Congress of the Uyghur American Association by Nury Turkel". Uyghur American Association. 28 May 2006. Retrieved 7 May 2020.
  11. "Nury Turkel, Commissioner". United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Retrieved 20 July 2020.
  12. "HHRG-115-FA05-Bio-TurkelN-20180926.pdf" (PDF). Congress.gov. 26 September 2018. Retrieved 21 July 2020.
  13. Leigh Hartman (23 June 2020). "Once interned in China, Uyghur American fights for religious freedom". U.S. Embassy in Denmark. Retrieved 20 July 2020.
  14. "ICT welcomes Nury Turkel's appointment to US religious freedom commission". International Campaign for Tibet. 26 May 2020. Retrieved 20 July 2020.
  15. "Balance of Power: China's Treatment of Uyghurs (Podcast)". Bloomberg News. 29 June 2020. Retrieved 20 July 2020.
  16. "CPIFC Welcomes the Appointment of Mr. Nury Turkel to USCIRF". Citizen Power Initiatives for China. 27 May 2020. Retrieved 5 August 2020.
  17. Leigh Hartman (23 June 2020). "Once interned in China, Uyghur American fights for religious freedom". ShareAmerica. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  18. Lisa Murray (14 December 2018). "Uighur lawyer Nury Turkel says Australia should sanction Chinese officials". The Australian Financial Review. Archived from the original on 21 July 2020. Retrieved 21 July 2020 – via Internet Archive.
  19. Kenneth Bandler (17 August 2020). "The Uyghers' plight is a humanitarian crisis. More must be done to help". Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 17 August 2020.
  20. "OPEN FORUM ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE RULE OF LAW IN CHINA" (PDF). pp. 9–11, 39–41.
  21. "Nury Turkel". Human Rights Foundation. Retrieved 21 July 2020.
  22. Nury A. Turkel (26 June 2008). "Uighur Justice". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 5 August 2020.
  23. "Meet the real Uyghurs". www.foreignpolicy.com. Retrieved 20 May 2009.
  24. Michael Clarke (2016). Anna Hayes, Michael Clarke (ed.). Xinjiang from the 'outside-in' and the 'inside-out': exploring the imagined geopolitics of a contested region. Inside Xinjiang: Space, Place and Power in China's Muslim Far Northwest. p. 249 – via Google Books.
  25. "Uyghur Protests Widen as Xinjiang Unrest Flares". www.democracynow.org. Retrieved 7 July 2009.
  26. "Mr. Nury Turkel Lawyer, Eastern Turkestan, USA". www.a9.com.tr. Retrieved 8 July 2009.
  27. "Nury Turkel: Why Western leaders have failed the Uighurs". www.independent.co.uk. Retrieved 8 July 2009.
  28. Nury A. Turkel (19 April 2012). "A Turkish Primer on Engaging Beijing". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 5 August 2020.
  29. "Xinjiang in China's Foreign Relations: Part of a New Silk Road or Central Asian Zone of Conflict?". Griffith University. p. 18-19. Retrieved 5 August 2020.
  30. Stephanie Nebehay. "U.N. says it has credible reports that China holds million Uighurs in secret camps". www.reuters.com. Retrieved 10 August 2018.
  31. "'Mass murder' fear for Muslim Uighurs". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 22 August 2018.
  32. "Pelosi Floor Speech in Support of the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act". Speaker Nancy Pelosi U.S. House of Representatives. 27 May 2020. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  33. "China Warns of 'Countermeasures' After Trump OKs Bill to 'Punish' Country Over Ethnic Crackdown". CNN-News18. 18 June 2020. Retrieved 20 July 2020.
  34. Nury Turkel (8 June 2020). "The U.S. Must Use the New Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act to Sanction Chinese Officials for Religious Persecution". TIME. Retrieved 5 August 2020.
  35. Richard Finney (20 July 2020). "US Sanctions 11 Chinese Firms for Human Rights Abuses in Xinjiang". Radio Free Asia. Translated by Alim Seytoff. Retrieved 21 July 2020.
  36. Joshua Lipes (31 July 2020). "US Sanctions Key Paramilitary Group, Officials Over Abuses in China's Xinjiang Region". Radio Free Asia. Translated by Alim Seytoff. Retrieved 5 August 2020.
  37. "USCIRF Applauds Global Magnitsky Sanctions Against Xinjiang Entity". United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. 31 July 2020. Retrieved 5 August 2020.
  38. Margaret Hagan (19 July 2010). "The human rights repertoire: its strategic logic, expectations and tactics" (PDF). International Journal of Human Rights. 14 (4): 575.
  39. "Attorney Nury Turkel". www.chinafile.com. Retrieved 3 May 2017.
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