Geneva, September 16, 2025 – Dolkun Isa, prominent human rights activist and president of the Uyghur Center for Democracy and Human Rights (UCDHR), delivered a powerful statement today before the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) during the 60th session of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC 60).
In his speech, Isa described the personal cost of his commitment to human rights: "I am a human rights activist, and I have paid a high price for this throughout my life. I fled China in the 1990s to continue my work on democratic soil. But the Chinese government continues to try to silence me, including by placing my name on an Interpol Red Notice and expelling me from the UN."
However, Isa added that the reprisals against his family were particularly distressing. His older brother, Yalkun Isa, was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a Chinese court in February on false charges of “inciting terrorism.” Yalkun Isa was a mathematics professor at the Aksu Education Institute, one of more than two dozen Uyghur academics who were arrested in 2017.
Dolkun Isa also recalled the fates of other family members: “In June 2021, I learned that my younger brother, Hushtar Isa, had been sentenced to life imprisonment. In 2020, I learned of my father's death through Chinese state propaganda, and in 2018, my mother, Ayhan Memet, died after spending a year in a camp.”
Isa criticized the fact that the People's Republic of China has so far failed to respond to numerous inquiries from UN special procedures regarding disappeared Uyghurs, including at least 84 communications and letters from the WGAD and other UN experts. “We are still in the dark,” he said, calling for transparency and accountability.
Finally, Dolkun Isa asked the working group a direct question: “What form does the WGAD's engagement with China take?”
His speech was accompanied by the NGO Stichting Global Human Rights Defense, which supported Isa in his presentation.