Warner & Kaine Urge Administration to Take Action to Stop Chinese Communist Party Repression of Virginians’ Uyghur Family Members
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine, Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee focused on human rights, sent a letter urging the Biden Administration to take action to stop the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) repression of Uyghur family members of their constituents, including the family members of Mr. Nury Turkel of Alexandria, Ms. Rushan Abbas of Falls Church, Mr. Mamatjan Juma of Woodbridge, Mr. Bahram Sintash of Chantilly, Ms. Adalet Sabit of Alexandria, and Ms. Subi Yuksel of Manassas. The CCP has waged a horrific and ongoing campaign against Uyghur Muslims, including forcibly detaining more than one million Uyghurs and other minorities in the Xinjiang region of China.
“We write to express our deep concern about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) persistent use of transnational repression against U.S. nationals, including our own constituents in Virginia,” wrote the senators in a letter to Department of Justice Attorney General Merrick Garland and Department of State Secretary Antony Blinken. “We ask that you provide detailed information on what specific steps the U.S. government is undertaking to address this issue, and that your agencies schedule a joint briefing with our respective offices to better understand what actions Congress may take to help in that effort.”
“The CCP has targeted the family members of our constituents – including the family of Nury Turkel, who is the Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Beijing has also detained the relatives of former and current Radio Free Asia journalists Rushan Abbas, Mamatjan Juma, and Bahram Sintash, and instituted travel bans against the family members of our constituents – namely Ms. Adalet Sabit and Ms. Subi Yuksel – in Xinjiang province. It is clear that the CCP’s cruelty knows no bounds,” the senators continued.
Warner and Kaine have long urged the U.S. government to address the CCP’s repression of Virginians’ Uyghur family members. In January 2021, Warner and Kaine cosponsored the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, bipartisan legislation to ensure that goods made with Uyghur forced labor in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) do not enter the United States. A version of this legislation passed the Senate unanimously and was signed into law by the President in December 2021. In February 2022, they urged the State Department to demand the release of Virginia’s Uyghur family members.
In June 2021, Kaine held a joint hearing, where Rushan Abbas of Falls Church was a witness, to highlight China’s atrocities against the Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang province and discuss additional ways to pressure China to end this horrific genocide. In June 2021, following a push by Kaine and Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) to mandate a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics as a way to highlight China’s human rights abuses against its Uyghur population and in Hong Kong, the Biden Administration announced it would do so in November of that year. In March 2021, Kaine introduced a bipartisan Senate resolution condemning China’s human rights abuses against the Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang and calling for an international investigation into the abuses and crimes committed there.
Full text of the letter is available here and below.
Dear Attorney General Garland and Secretary Blinken:
We write to express our deep concern about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) persistent use of transnational repression against U.S. nationals, including our own constituents in Virginia.
We ask that you provide detailed information on what specific steps the U.S. government is undertaking to address this issue, and that your agencies schedule a joint briefing with our respective offices to better understand what actions Congress may take to help in that effort.
Freedom House has noted that China conducts the most comprehensive campaign of transnational repression in the world, with Beijing responsible for “229 of the 735 recorded incidents of physical transnational repression since 2014.” Reports have also emerged about the presence of secret “police stations” in the U.S. that track and intimidate citizens of Chinese origin living in the United States. That China feels emboldened to extend its authoritarian grip beyond its borders is both alarming and a violation of U.S. national sovereignty.
American Uyghurs in Virginia have experienced the consequences of China’s relentless attempts to silence dissent. The CCP has targeted the family members of our constituents – including the family of Nury Turkel, who is the Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Beijing has also detained the relatives of former and current Radio Free Asia journalists Rushan Abbas, Mamatjan Juma, and Bahram Sintash, and instituted travel bans against the family members of our constituents – namely Ms. Adalet Sabit and Ms. Subi Yuksel – in Xinjiang province. It is clear that the CCP’s cruelty knows no bounds.
At its core, China’s intimidation and harassment of Uyghur dissidents in the U.S. threatens American democracy and our country’s residents. We ask for your prompt attention to this important matter.
Sincerely,
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