Uyghur Human Rights Project

The Uyghur Human Rights Project (, ; abbreviated UHRP) is a research-based advocacy organization located in Washington, D.C. that promotes human rights for Uyghurs. According to the UHRP, its main goal is "promoting human rights and democracy for Uyghurs and others living in East Turkistan" through research-based advocacy. Due to the unique challenges that China presents in terms of gathering information in an accurate and timely manner, the group believes that organizations that specifically focus on the Uyghur crisis are especially important, in addition to organizations that focus on human rights more broadly. The organization also hosts events, like panels of experts, to discuss the crisis facing the Uyghurs.
History.
Uyghur Human Rights Project was founded in 2004 by the Uyghur American Association, and have eight full-time staff. The project was founded with a grant from the National Endowment for Democracy, and became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, tax-exempt organization in 2016.
Omer Kanat has been the organization's Executive Director since 2018. He previously served as the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) Vice President from 2006 to 2017, and has also been a WUC Executive Committee Chairman since 2017. Co-founder Nury Turkel also serves as Board Chair, and was appointed by the U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi as a commissioner on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (2019-2022).
The group also joined with fifty other organizations and experts in September 2020 to call on the UN Human Rights Council to appoint a Commission of Inquiry to investigate atrocity crimes against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim peoples.
Reports.
The organization publishes reports and analysis in English and Chinese to defend Uyghurs' civil, political, social, cultural, and economic rights according to international human rights standards.
In July 2020, the UHRP published the report, "'The Happiest Muslims in the World': Disinformation, Propaganda, and the Uyghur Crisis," which analyzes the Chinese Communist Party's counter-narrative in response to escalating international alarm about human rights violations against Uyghurs.
UHRP has published reports on the CCP's policies regarding all aspects of Uyghur human rights, including cultural rights, such as "Kashgar Coerced: Forced Reconstruction, Exploitation, and Surveillance in the Cradle of Uyghur Culture," and "Extracting Cultural Resources: the Exploitation and Criminalization of Uyghur Cultural Heritage."