CFU PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 9, 2026
Contact: contact@campaignforuyghurs.org
https://campaignforuyghurs.org/
CFU Recognizes U.S. Hostage and Wrongful Detainee Day and Calls for Dr. Gulshan Abbas’s Release
Today, March 9th, 2026, is U.S. Hostage and Wrongful Detainee Day, which honors Americans held captive abroad, supports their families, and reaffirms the national commitment to bringing them home. Campaign for Uyghurs (CFU) Executive Director Rushan Abbas, along with Center for Uyghur Studies (CUS) Executive Director Abdulhakim Idris, attended a commemoration event and flag ceremony in the U.S. State Department honoring and observing the day, where Secretary of State Marco Rubio and FBI Deputy Director Christopher Raia gave remarks.
On this day, CFU reaffirms its call for the immediate release of Dr. Gulshan Abbas, who has been wrongly imprisoned by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on sham charges for over seven and a half years. In September 2018, just days after her sister, Rushan Abbas, spoke out against the treatment of Uyghurs by the CCP at an event at the Hudson Institute, Chinese authorities disappeared Dr. Gulshan Abbas as a hostage in a retaliatory action against an Uyghur American’s freedom of speech in the U.S. Entering the eighth year of her unjust imprisonment, concerns grow about her physical well-being as she suffers from serious medical conditions. Gulshan’s imprisonment is both an act of retaliation against her siblings’ advocacy and a violation of international law.
CFU welcomes the State Department’s commitment to bringing political prisoners and hostages home to their families. We encourage the Department to do all within its power, especially with President Trump’s meeting with Xi Jinping on the horizon, to bring Dr. Gulshan Abbas to the United States to live out her retirement years alongside her family and children who reside here in America.
“My sister, Dr. Gulshan Abbas, who is almost 64 years old and a retired medical doctor, has spent the last seven and a half years unjustly detained in retaliation for my advocacy,” says CFU Executive Director Rushan Abbas. “She is a peaceful and caring person with no political involvement or agenda. She deserves to be free and spend her days with her family members and loved ones.”
CFU calls on the international community, governments, and human rights groups to renew the call for Dr. Gulshan Abbas’s freedom and for the release of all unjustly detained Uyghurs in China.
