When President Xi Jinping arrives at the White House later this month, Ziba Murat hopes her mother's name will be on the agenda. Gulshan Abbas, a 64-year-old retired physician, has spent eight years in a Chinese prison on what the U.S. government and human rights groups call fabricated terrorism charges. The meeting, the two leaders' third this year after summits in Busan last October and Beijing in May, is, according to her family, the clearest opening yet to get her out.
"I hope, and we all saw what happened with [Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri's] case, when the president brought it up with Xi back in May and he was released to be with his family here in the United States, that the president can raise this case as well," Murat told Newsweek in an exclusive interview. "This is a very clear-cut case of transnational repression." Rushan Abbas, Gulshan’s sister, has spent years campaigning for the doctor's release since her arrest in September 2018. She also sees the upcoming summit as an opportunity and is urging Trump to raise her sister’s case.
A House resolution introduced by New Jersey Republican Representative Chris Smith called on President Donald Trump to prioritize securing the release of several political and religious prisoners in China, including Abbas, in future meetings with Xi. The resolution passed the House unanimously in a 414-0 vote in May 13, while the Senate agreed to its version the same day. Asked about Abbas’ case and China’s treatment of Uyghurs abroad, the State Department told Newsweek, “We condemn China’s transnational repression and efforts to pressure other governments to forcibly return Uyghurs and members of other ethnic and religious groups to China, where they have been subject to torture and enforced disappearances.” Dr.
Abbas practiced medicine in Urumqi, the capital of China's Xinjiang region. She retired early due to health issues, according to her family, but kept showing up for patients. She met people who traveled from small villages and walked them through the hospital herself, translating and making sure they got seen.
"Sometimes we'd wake up in the morning and she'd already be gone," Murat said. "When we were little we'd ask my father or my grandmother where she was, and they'd tell us, 'She's at the hospital, someone came from out of town and she wanted to make sure they saw a doctor.'" Five days after Rushan Abbas spoke at a Hudson Institute panel in Washington in September 2018 about the disappearance of her husband’s extended family in Xinjiang and China’s broader treatment of Uyghurs, a predominantly Muslim ethnic group native to the region, Chinese authorities took her sister from her home in Urumqi. "She was arrested only five days after my first public speech at the Hudson Institute, which was televised," Rushan Abbas said.
"I believe she was taken in retaliation for my freedom of speech. I've been a U.S. citizen since 1995. I've lived in the U.S. for 37 years.
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