China’s repression of the Uyghur people stands as one of the gravest human rights crises of our time, and acts as a blueprint for how modern authoritarian regimes weaponize technology to control, exploit, and erase entire communities. This event will explore how surveillance systems, biometric data collection, AI-enabled policing, and state-imposed forced labor form an integrated machinery of oppression in the Uyghur region, and how these same technologies and economic practices are increasingly shaping global supply chains and governance models beyond China’s borders.

The program will open with remarks from Dr. Glenn Tiffert, a leading scholar on Chinese political systems, technology policy, and authoritarian influence. He will explore how digital tools, research ecosystems, and global economic structures contribute to or resist the spread of repressive technologies.

Following this, Rushan Abbas, Executive Director of Campaign for Uyghurs and one of the most prominent Uyghur voices in the world, will deliver a presentation on the plight of the Uyghur people, which some have described as a “modern” genocide. She will connect these systems to the lived experiences of Uyghur families, the realities of technology and forced labor, and the global complicity that sustains the repression.

The event will conclude with a joint Q&A session, inviting participants to engage directly with both speakers on the intersection of technology, human rights, global security, and the urgent need for accountability.

Rushan Abbas is an Uyghur American activist, the co-founder and Executive Director of Campaign for Uyghurs, and the Chairperson of the Executive Committee at the World Uyghur Congress. Her journey as a human rights defender began as one of the co-organizers of the pro-democracy student protests at Xinjiang University in the 1980s. Over the decades, Abbas has worked at the intersection of advocacy, media, and diplomacy. 

Following the 2018 abduction of her sister, Dr. Gulshan Abbas, in her homeland, by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Rushan left a career in global business development and turned to full-time activism—shedding a light on the CCP’s genocide of Uyghurs and confronting its transnational repression. Her organization has mobilized global solidarity, and has produced groundbreaking reports on the crisis—earning Campaign for Uyghurs nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022 and 2025. 

In addition to her primary leadership roles, she serves as the Axel Springer Freedom Foundation’s Chairwoman of the Advisory Board, and as a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Task Force on Human Trafficking. Her honors include the 2019 Freedom Fighter Award, the 2024 Huntington Her Hero Lifetime Achievement Award, and the 2025 Democracy Award presented by the National Endowment for Democracy. 

A sought after speaker and trusted lived experienced expert, Abbas regularly briefs U.S. and international lawmakers and government officials, testifies before the U.S. Congress, and speaks at forums ranging from Holocaust museums to inter-faith coalitions and universities.

Glenn Tiffert is a distinguished research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a historian of modern China. He co-chairs Hoover’s program on the US, China, and the World, and also leads Stanford’s participation in the National Science Foundation’s SECURE program, a $67 million effort authorized by the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 to enhance the security and integrity of the US research enterprise. He works extensively on the security and integrity of ecosystems of knowledge, particularly academic, corporate, and government research; science and technology policy; and malign foreign interference.