Campaign For Uyghurs (CFU) welcomes the motion introduced in the Canadian Senate on June 9 by Senator Leo Housakos calling on the Government of Canada to demand the immediate release of Dr. Gulshan Abbas. The motion comes right before Dr. Abbas’s 64th birthday on June 12, marking the eighth birthday she will spend unjustly imprisoned by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Dr. Gulshan Abbas, a retired physician and sister of CFU Executive Director Rushan Abbas, was forcibly disappeared in September 2018, just days after Rushan spoke publicly at the Hudson Institute about the CCP’s persecution of Uyghurs.

After two years of silence regarding her whereabouts, it was revealed that Dr. Abbas had been sentenced in secret proceedings on fabricated charges. During its 95th session, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded that the CCP’s detention of Gulshan was arbitrary and in violation of international law. Her forced disappearance is an act of retaliation against Rushan’s human rights advocacy and a clear example of the Chinese government’s transnational repression.

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“It’s been nearly 8 years since Dr. Gulshan Abbas was taken by Beijing…This is textbook transnational repression. Today, I tabled a Senate motion calling on Canada to stand up and demand her immediate release,” Senator Housakos stated on June 9.

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