Nury Turkel is an American attorney, author, public official, and foreign policy expert based in
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...
He is a former chair of the
United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, and former president of the
Uyghur American Association.
Turkel is the first U.S.-educated Uyghur lawyer
and the first Uyghur American to be appointed to a political position in the United States. In 2020, he was named to ''
Time
Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...
''s
list of the 100 most influential people in the world,
and was included among
Fortune's50 Greatest Leadersthe following year. He is the author of ''
No Escape: The True Story of China's Genocide of the Uyghurs.''
Early life
Turkel was born in a re-education camp
in
Kashgar
Kashgar () or Kashi ( zh, c=喀什) is a city in the Tarim Basin region of southern Xinjiang, China. It is one of the westernmost cities of China, located near the country's border with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. For over 2,000 years, Kashgar ...
during the
Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a Social movement, sociopolitical movement in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his de ...
.
Turkel's grandfather had been associated with
Uyghur nationalists and his mother was interned when she was six months pregnant. Turkel lived in the detention center for the first four months of his life.
Turkel's father was a professor and his mother was a businesswoman.
He completed his primary and middle school in his homeland. In 1991, he was admitted by
Northwest A&F University
Northwest A&F University (NWAFU; ) is a national public university located in Yangling District, Xianyang, Shaanxi, China. It is affiliated with the Ministry of Education of China. The university is part of Project 211, Project 985, and the Doub ...
in
Shaanxi Province
Shaanxi is a province in north Northwestern China. It borders the province-level divisions of Inner Mongolia to the north; Shanxi and Henan to the east; Hubei, Chongqing, and Sichuan to the south; and Gansu and Ningxia to the west. Shaanxi ...
, China.
In 1995, Turkel received his BA and went to the United States for graduate education, never returning to China.
Turkel has a
Master of Arts
A Master of Arts ( or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA or AM) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Those admitted to the degree have ...
in international relations and a
Juris Doctor
A Juris Doctor, Doctor of Jurisprudence, or Doctor of Law (JD) is a graduate-entry professional degree that primarily prepares individuals to practice law. In the United States and the Philippines, it is the only qualifying law degree. Other j ...
from
American University
The American University (AU or American) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Its main campus spans 90-acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, in the Spri ...
.
Career

In 2003, Turkel co-founded the
Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) and has served as its chairman of the board.
Between 2004 and 2006, Turkel served as president of the
Uyghur American Association.
In May 2020, Nury Turkel was appointed a commissioner on the
United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)
by then
Speaker of the House
The speaker of a deliberative assembly, especially a legislative body, is its presiding officer, or the chair. The title was first used in 1377 in England.
Usage
The title was first recorded in 1377 to describe the role of Thomas de Hung ...
Nancy Pelosi
Nancy Patricia Pelosi ( ; ; born March 26, 1940) is an American politician who was the List of Speakers of the United States House of Representatives, 52nd speaker of the United States House of Representatives, serving from 2007 to 2011 an ...
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."
Policy Advocacy
On 10 March 2003, Turkel made a statement to the
Congressional-Executive Commission on China
The Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) is an independent agency of the U.S. government which monitors human rights and rule of law developments in the People's Republic of China. The commission was given the mandate by the U.S. C ...
on the worsening human rights situation in East Turkestan (Xinjiang) in the wake of the
September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...
.
In May 2009, he defended a group of 17
Uyghurs who had been held in Guantánamo Bay since 2002. He wrote that Uyghurs have faced discrimination and are not a threat to U.S. communities.
After the
July 2009 Ürümqi riots
A series of violent riots over several days broke out on 5 July 2009 in Ürümqi, the capital city of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, in northwestern China. The first day's rioting, which involved at least 1,000 Uyghurs, began as a p ...
, he condemned alleged Chinese oppression of Uyghurs in Ürümqi, saying 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.
In April 2012, Turkel praised Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (born 26 February 1954) is a Turkish politician who is the 12th and current president of Turkey since 2014. He previously served as the 25th prime minister of Turkey, prime minister from 2003 to 2014 as part of the Jus ...
for showing support and sympathy for the Uyghur people surrounding his trip to China in a way that was seen as rare among foreign leaders. However, in July 2020, Turkel
criticized Turkey for deporting Uyghur refugees to countries that then deported them to China.
Turkel supported the June 2020 signing of the
Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act and a July 2020
United States Department of Commerce
The United States Department of Commerce (DOC) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government. It is responsible for gathering data for business and governmental decision making, establishing industrial standards, catalyzing econ ...
announcement sanctioning eleven Chinese companies involved in alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang. He called for sanctions on the
Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps
The Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (新疆生产建设兵团; abbreviated as 新疆兵团, or XPCC in English), also known as ''Bingtuan'', trading with the external name China Xinjian Group, is a state-owned enterprise and parami ...
(XPCC) in particular. In an August 2020 interview, Turkel described the camps as one of the worst global humanitarian crises and the largest incarceration of an ethnic minority since the Holocaust.
He also urged the U.S. Congress to pass the
Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which would direct the
U.S. Customs and Border Protection
United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is the largest federal law enforcement agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security. It is the country's primary border control organization, charged with regulating and facilita ...
to presume that any goods produced in the Uyghur region are the product of forced labor.
On 21 December 2021, Turkel was sanctioned by the Chinese government as part of retaliatory sanctions after U.S. government imposed sanctions on Chinese officials.
Books
Turkel's 2022 book ''
No Escape: The True Story of China's Genocide of the Uyghurs'' won the 2022 Moore Prize for Human Rights Writing.
Recognition
In September 2020, Turkel was named one of the
Time 100
''Time'' 100 is a list of the top 100 most influential people, assembled by the American news magazine ''Time''. First published in 1999 as the result of a debate among American academics, politicians, and journalists, the list is now a highly ...
Most Influential People in the World.
In 2021,
Fortune Magazine
''Fortune'' (stylized in all caps) is an American global business magazine headquartered in New York City. It is published by Fortune Media Group Holdings, a global business media company. The publication was founded by Henry Luce in 1929. T ...
included him in their "The World's 50 Greatest Leaders" lists. He received the inaugural Notre Dame Prize for Religious Liberty from the
Notre Dame Law School
Notre Dame Law School is the law school of the University of Notre Dame. Established in 1869, it is the oldest continuously operating Catholic law school in the United States.
The school enrolls about 600 students and in addition to the J.D. ...
Religious Liberty Initiative in June 2021. He was awarded the Global Soul Award by
Jewish World Watch
Jewish World Watch (JWW) is a non-profit humanitarian organization dedicated to helping survivors of genocide and mass atrocities around the world.
History
Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis and Janice Kamenir-Reznik established Jewish World Watch ( ...
in September 2022.
Personal life
Nury Turkel is a
Muslim
Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...
.
In 2007, he married
Turkish American interior designer Nazli Turkel. They live in the Washington, DC, area with their two children.
Turkel is proficient in several languages, including
Uyghur
Uyghur may refer to:
* Uyghurs, a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia (West China)
** Uyghur language, a Turkic language spoken primarily by the Uyghurs
*** Old Uyghur language, a different Turkic language spoken in the Uyghur K ...
(his mother tongue), English, Turkish, and Mandarin Chinese.
See also
*
World Uyghur Congress
*
Rebiya Kadeer
*
Dolkun Isa
References
External links
Nury Turkelon Twitter
Nury Turkel at the 2020 Geneva Summit for Human Rights(
Geneva Summit for Human Rights, 2020)
Nury Turkel - Uyghur Human Rights Project, Washington(Interview with ''
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
'', 2018)
Treatment of Uyghurs in China(''
C-SPAN
Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American Cable television in the United States, cable and Satellite television in the United States, satellite television network, created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a Non ...
''; Turkel speaks beginning at 39:00, 2019)
Has China detained a million Uighur Muslims?(''
Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera Media Network (AJMN; , ) is a private-media conglomerate headquartered in Wadi Al Sail, Doha, funded in part by the government of Qatar. The network's flagship channels include Al Jazeera Arabic and Al Jazeera English, which pro ...
''; Nury Turkel and
Victor Gao discuss
Xinjiang internment camps
The Xinjiang internment camps, officially called vocational education and training centers by the government of the People's Republic of China, are internment camps operated by the government of Xinjiang and the Chinese Communist Party P ...
and related issues, 2018)
The New Gulag in China(Interview with
Jay Nordlinger
Jay Nordlinger (born November 21, 1963) is an American journalist. He is a former senior editor of ''National Review'', and a book fellow of the National Review Institute. He is also a music critic for '' The New Criterion'' and ''The Conservati ...
, 2018)
The UK joins the US to condemn the PRC for the Uyghur genocide & What is to be done? @NuryTurkel Uyghur Human Rights Project and a commissioner of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom(Interview on ''
The John Batchelor Show'', 2020)
Arthur C. Helton Memorial Lecture: China's Uighurs(
Council on Foreign Relations
The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an American think tank focused on Foreign policy of the United States, U.S. foreign policy and international relations. Founded in 1921, it is an independent and nonpartisan 501(c)(3) nonprofit organi ...
, 2019)
"The Tragedy of China's Uyghurs"(interview, 2020)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Turkel, Nury
Living people
American people of Uyghur descent
American individuals subject to Chinese sanctions
Chinese emigrants to the United States
Naturalized citizens of the United States
1970 births
People from Kashgar
American lawyers
American civil servants
Muslims from Washington, D.C.