Date: August 29, 2023

Time: 10:00–11:00 a.m. EDT

Watch live on UHRP’s Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube pages

Join the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) for a book talk about the new memoir by Uyghur poet, Tahir Hamut Izgil—Waiting to be Arrested at Night: A Uyghur Poet’s Memoir of China’s Genocide. The event will feature the author, Tahir Hamut Izgil, Alex Chow from HKDC, and Tsultrim Gyatso from the Office of Tibet, DC. The event will be held in the Chinese language.

Speakers:

Tahir Hamut Izgil is a prominent poet and filmmaker. He was born in Kashgar in 1969, enrolled in The Central University for Nationalities in 1987, and was a leading figure for Uyghur students during the 1989 Democracy Movement (Tiananmen Square protests). He fled with his family to the United States while the Chinese government began its mass internment of Uyghurs. In April 2018, the World Uyghur Writers’ Union was established in Istanbul by a group of 25 Uyghur writers. Tahir Hamut Izgil was chosen to be their first leader.

Tsultrim Gyatso was born in Lhasa, Tibet. He was later exiled to live in a Tibetan village in India. He immigrated to the United States while in high school, and was elected by the Tibetan Community of New York & New Jersey to be a board member. He has been working as the Chinese Liaison Officer at Office of Tibet in Washington DC since 2018.

Alex Chow is a founding member of the Hong Kong Democracy Council, a non-profit organization based in Washington, DC that advocates for the protection of Hong Kongers’ basic freedoms, democracy, and cultural identity. He played a significant role in the 2014 Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong, where he was one of the student leaders. In 2017, Chow was sentenced to prison for seven months due to his leadership role in the movement. Along with two other activists, he was nominated for the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize.

Moderator:

Tashken Davlet joined the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) as Outreach Specialist in 2021. As an Uyghur Taiwanese, he speaks fluent Mandarin and is proficient in Chinese, and has been raising awareness and promoting the discussion of the Uyghur human rights issue in the Chinese/Mandarin community, especially in Taiwan.